


Fimbulwinter

by cofax, finisterre



Series: Life During Wartime [12]
Category: The X-Files
Genre: AU, Apocafic, F/M, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-01-21
Updated: 2014-01-21
Packaged: 2018-01-09 12:28:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 13
Words: 46,328
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1145983
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cofax/pseuds/cofax, https://archiveofourown.org/users/finisterre/pseuds/finisterre
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After an arduous journey, Mulder and Scully find the Gunmen's hideout, just in time for a cold December. But are they safe even there?</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. The Backstory, a Summary

**Author's Note:**

> BETA by Fialka, Melymbrosia, and Sarah Segretti. Other notes at end.

This series was begun at the back end of season six, therefore all canon stops just before Biogenesis (though we have tried not to contradict any canonical personal information about the main characters which appeared in later seasons of XF). 

Therefore some people are alive once more, including WMM, Teena Mulder and, of course, Alex Krycek. 

Many of the story titles come from the Talking Heads song, Life During Wartime.

They are (narrator/main characters in brackets):  
"High On A Hillside" (Mulder)  
"What Good Are Notebooks" (Scully)   
"A Place Where Nobody Knows" (Teena Mulder/CSM)  
"No Time for Dancing" (Lone Gunmen/Susanne Modeski)  
"Held Nor Free" (Skinner)  
"What You Don't Know" (Charlie Scully)  
"Things To Do in Dulwich When You're Dead" (Well-Manicured Man)  
"Getting Used to Gunfire" (Maggie Scully/Mulder/Scully)  
"Whose Frail Warmth" (Mulder/Scully/Maggie)  
"Cheating the God of Fire" (Scully/Mulder)  
"Breakdown" (Mulder)

Some of these are extremely short, some not. So, the Cliff Notes version of the story so far is:

One ordinary Saturday, Mulder is told that colonization is on its way. The Lone Gunmen know few details but warn him to get the hell out of Washington that weekend, before the breakdown of civilization begins. They give him the names of some hideouts maintained by friends of theirs who have prepared for the end. 

He calls Scully and convinces her, warns Skinner, then drives by to pick up Maggie Scully, who hardly believes what they are telling her but agrees to the roadtrip because her daughter and that peculiar partner of hers are so insistent. 

Meanwhile, Maggie tries to warn her other children. Bill is at sea. Charlie, who is better informed than his sister might think, is picked up by the bad guys.

The Gunmen head north to pick up Susanne Modeski. Byers, dreamer that he is, kept in touch with her after she went into hiding and refuses to go into hiding until they pick her up from Pittsburgh. 

Frohike and Langly discover that this relationship also included entrusting her with the copies of Scully's notes and samples, detailing everything, from what she knew about her abduction to the black oil. Susanne had planned a return to her old place within the consortium after colonization, but her former colleagues decided instead to have her killed.

Frohike and Langly drag Byers away, and after a night in a safe house in upstate New York, they head inland towards the safest of the boltholes they know, in Indiana. 

Meanwhile, Mulder, Scully and Maggie begin an awkward, meandering journey toward Louisville. On the Sunday, they stop off at a bunker in the West Virginia hills, hiding themselves and their pick-up truck. That night, nuclear warheads are detonated high in the upper atmosphere, creating an electromagnetic pulse (EMP) across the globe which knocks out all unshielded electronics and electrical systems, from car systems to televisions to all civilian and commercial communication systems. 

As they continue their journey along the back roads to meet the Gunmen in Indiana, they realise that someone is trying to stop the birth of a resistance in general and stop them in particular. Large ships appear in the now silent skies, and it appears that the chips implanted in the necks of abductees are being activated. Scully escapes one such activation.

In Washington, Skinner tries to warn others, but to no avail. He is only convinced to leave after a visit from Alex Krycek, who tells him he is finally free of the nanites, thanks to the EMP. He gives Skinner a piece of paper which details how the world is to be cleared of humans, using wave after wave of engineered disease. Skinner realizes he has to get this to Scully, as she's the only person he can think of who would understand how to start battling it. He resolves to track Mulder and Scully down.

Mulder and Scully's backwoods route takes them into Tennessee, where the local doctor warns them not to come near as there is a strange sickness in the town, a strange new infection which leaves people coughing, wheezing and sweating their way to an unpleasant death. 

Scully volunteers to try to help fight it, and Maggie and Mulder try to help the citizens of Heniston adjust to this strange new world.

But they soon realize that this is no normal infection. It has deliberately been engineered to pick off a large section of the population -- and it is being spread by the National Guard, who are unwittingly delivering care packages containing the infection. 

They are forced to leave the town when they realize that the military are serious about capturing them, to the extent that their photographs have been circulated to the local authorities. But even as they leave, Maggie develops the cough. In a small rat trap of a roadside motel, she dies, just like the people of Heniston.

Mulder and Scully have no choice but to continue their journey, but Maggie's death and its aftermath has driven a wedge between them. Even as they approach what they once hoped would be safety and a reunion with their friends in Indiana, they are at the end of their endurance -- and moving ever further apart...


	2. Chapter 2

_"The war could have been happening for years. Maybe it's been going on just out of sight, and we just caught glimpses of it from the corner of the eye, like seeing the shadows move in a darkened room. The old legends say that the wolves Skoll and Hati will quench the sun and devour the moon. The world will start to shake and everything that is bound will be freed. This is our fimbulwinter._

_"Look up at the moon, Sean. See the haze around it, the halo of frost? That's the fimbul moon. And this how it begins, your grandfather told me, with the winter that lingers until the earth is chilled to its very core. Fimbulwinter: a cold that signals the end of everything."_

\---------------------------

 

//December 5//

He was the lookout but it wasn't much of a job. In the distance, nothing to see but bare trees, white fields and acres of gray sky laden with more snow. Ten yards away, the metal perimeter fence slicing everything into neat little squares. 

He blew on his gloved hands and stamped his boots into the gravel. Melvin Frohike, reporting for The Lone Gunman from Freezingmyassoff, Indiana. Who knew the end of civilization as we know it would be so much fun? And why was it so damned cold anyhow?

He prayed that he wouldn't see people because any news he had for them wasn't going to be good. 

His gloves were nowhere near warm enough. Something caught on his eyelash and he swiped at it, irritation growing. Now it was snowing again. Jesus H. Christ. 

He retreated inside the drafty old army gatehouse, sat down on a wooden box and leaned his gun against the wall. He left the door open so he could scan the empty horizon.

Out there, people were dying in their cold houses, dying without medicines or doctors or clean water and instead of being out there, doing something about it, he was safe inside the compound. 

All because they had welded the gates shut.

Jack had given the order: turn away everyone you don't know. And even though this was nominally an anarchistic collective, Jack Hughes was the boss. 

Jack, with his parade-ground bark and his military swagger. Jack the ex-colonel. Jack, his old friend from too many years ago to count.

Even Byers had given in to Jack's argument and helped weld together the chains that locked every other gate to the compound. God, the fight they'd had about that. Fucking Byers, following orders like a good little soldier. Truth be told, he was still mad at Byers over the way he trusted Susanne too.

And the problem was that he'd never budgeted for any of this. He'd never expected to sit in a place of safety, a gun in his hands, and tell a mother with two sick children that she couldn't come in. That had been the day after Thanksgiving.

But they'd all heard the stories about the disease in Louisville -- something that spread faster than a filthy email and killed almost everyone it touched. It couldn't get in here or they were finished.

He blew on his hands and wished he had a bottle of scotch. Then at least he wouldn't be so cold and hungry. Or he might be just as cold and hungry but he would give less of a shit.

He checked his watch. Two hours to go. Then he saw them: two stick figures, a guy and a kid, walking down the road.

"Shit," he muttered out loud and picked up the shotgun. The other guys did guard duty and never saw a soul. His turn, and every loser in Louisville hiked up to see him.

He squinted in the weak afternoon light. At least these two were dressed for winter, although the kid looked overwhelmed by the size of his pack.

Wait a minute... that wasn't a kid. 

"I'll be damned," he breathed. "Scully."

He stood up and waved, feeling the hope swell in his chest at their mere approach, but they didn't respond in kind. They just looked up and walked a little faster.

They looked battered and moved like they were carrying bruises bone-deep, injuries that hadn't begun to heal. 

No wonder he hadn't recognized Mulder at first. A straggly beard covered the lower half of his face and made his reactions harder to read than ever. 

"Man," Frohike said, a grin splitting his face as he walked out of the gatehouse. He'd almost given them up for dead. "It's so good to see you guys." 

"Hey, Frohike." Mulder nodded and leaned up against the fence, rattling the gate. Scully, hooded and fat round the middle with layers of clothing, hung back a few feet. 

He had almost got the gate open before he remembered Jack's order -- and if the reports Jack brought back from Louisville about the illness hadn't been so terrifying, he would have said "fuck it" and let them in anyway. "Um... I have to ask you this. How are you both doing?"

Could he be vaguer?

"We're fine, Frohike. Just tired," Scully said, all gravel-voiced like Marlene Dietrich. Could be that she hadn't talked much lately. Or maybe she had a bad throat. Wasn't that how it started?

Frohike hesitated for a second but that was long enough for Mulder's temper to snap like ten feet of bad rope. "Frohike, we're not carrying anything, we're not sick. We just want to get the fuck out of the cold."

So much for tearful reunions.

Frohike stripped his gloves off to unlock the gate to the compound, fumbling a little because his fingers were numb, and then hurried them up the long drive to the first world war-era office building that was their HQ and living quarters. He offered to take Scully's pack but she didn't seem to see or hear him.

Once inside the building, Scully shook off her hood and he gaped for a moment before looking away. Mulder looked thin and tired too but Scully... Christ. They must have had a terrible journey for it to make one of the strongest people he knew look like that.

They needed time to feel they were safe. Christ knows, it had taken him a while to get used to it.

Of course, what they really needed first was a shower. From downwind Mulder smelled like the badly-stuffed alligator his grandfather used to display over the mantle. He thought Scully was a little better but he wasn't sure whether that was because she was cleaner, or because Mulder's reek had killed his sense of smell.

He changed his mind about giving them the grand tour and led them across to the second block.

"C'mon, you two," he said with half a leer. "You'll appreciate this, I promise."

**~+~+~**

Scully had tuned out Frohike's chatter as soon as they got inside the heated building. He was pointing at things but she walked in a daze. Her cheeks and fingers felt pinched and swollen in the warm air but she turned her face toward it anyway like a plant following the sun. She'd been cold for weeks, but today's long silent hike, battling snow all the way from Louisville after their truck broke down, had been the worst.

She trudged after Frohike, meltwater dripping in her wake. She'd been expecting to find the Gunmen holed up in a makeshift underground warren, like the first hideout they found, not something as solid and well-established as a recently decommissioned military compound.

Frohike led them to a small brick building with no windows and thrust open the main doors before Scully had a chance to read the sign in the dim light.

He flicked on the lights to reveal an echoing space floored with a tasteful blue carpet. Angular shapes broke up reflections from the mirrored walls about them. She blinked once or twice but nothing more sensible took their place.

It was a weight room. This was a small health club. She wasn't hallucinating.

Mulder shifted his backpack and coughed. Despite the distance between them she could read exactly what he was thinking: Frohike on a stairmaster. She bowed her head and burrowed her nose into her scarf to stifle the smile.

"We decided it made no sense to heat water in all the buildings we were using, and the facilities here are the best in the complex." Frohike looked defensive. 

Hot water, she thought, and stopped thinking. 

"Locker room is right over there, Scully," Frohike said after a short pause. "I think there are some towels in there." With a shrug, Scully hefted her pack and headed for the door Frohike had indicated.

She crossed the floor, her reflection flickering in the mirrors. Behind her she saw Frohike, his face a mixture of concern and confusion, and Mulder, a long shadow unmoving by the door. 

God, he wasn't going to follow her, was he? The memory of the showers in Fort Marlene burned again for a moment and she prayed he wouldn't. 

Then she realized he was only staring at her. She paused and looked at herself.

Dear God. Lost in the oversized green parka was a rail-thin woman, her face pale and smudged with exhaustion. Under two layers of coats, she was wearing a stained Oxford sweatshirt that reached halfway to her knees and a pair of cotton pants that might once have been blue under the grime.

She sighed. There were no clean clothes in her pack. They'd had to leave a lot behind when the truck broke down, and her pack had more equipment and files than clothes in it.

"Fro--"

"I'll get you some," he said before she had the words out of her mouth. He waved reassuringly. "Linda must have something that will fit you. Go take your shower, I'll put something inside the door." And with that he turned away.

Mulder was still there, though. His eyes met hers for a moment in the mirror, inscrutable and dark. Then he turned away, to her relief. 

Hot water, she thought again, and shoved open the door to the women's locker room.

It was bright white, nearly new. Clean tile covered the floors and went partway up the walls, and the pale wooden lockers were fronted with neat benches. Scully began to undress, piling her clothes on the bench. There was a stack of towels, mismatched but clean, on a shelf by the showers, next to several half-empty bottles of shampoo. Add half a dozen sweating overachievers and it could have been the women's locker rooms at Quantico.

It was completely quiet. She was alone for the first time since they had buried her mother.

They had arrived. 

She paused, her hands full of stained clothing. They were finally here. 

The thin woman in the mirror was no one she recognized: a bruised wraith in dingy underwear. Her mother ... her mother would have insisted she come over for a meal of lamb stew and homemade pie, and would have quizzed her on whether she was taking her vitamins.

Scully grabbed the nearest shampoo bottle, Walgreen's own brand for normal hair, and the remains of a bar of soap she had been carrying around for weeks. The shower sputtered and then broke into a fierce pelting spray, the first truly hot water she'd washed with in more than six weeks. A pool of muddy brown formed around her feet and drained away. 

She worked the soap into a thick lather and the strong scent of lavender caught her off-guard. Claire, the doctor they had met in Heniston, had pressed this soap on her when the epidemic was at its height and they were losing three or four patients a night. Fellow medics knew the value of small comforts in a war of attrition. Claire, who had helped send them to safety even though she was overrun with dying patients. And then...

The tile floor was slick under her as she sat back against the wall, and wept for a long time. There was no need for silence now, and the gulps and sobs echoed in the tiny space of the shower stall. 

When she stopped at last her fingers were wrinkled, her legs were shaky and she felt light-headed but she felt a little better. 

Scully washed her hair quickly, then shut off the water. Grabbing a towel from the stack, she padded back through the locker room, wincing from the pain of the cold tile floors on her newly warmed feet. She intended to dress and find hot food if possible; it seemed longer than three hours since she and Mulder had eaten the last of the apples. 

Then she paused. That wooden door with the dial. 

It couldn't be. It was. Oh, glory. 

A sauna, here. Surreal. Perhaps their rooms would have four-poster beds and HBO. The end of the world as we know it, but they'd all be feeling just fucking fine. She laughed and the echo of it startled her. She clapped a hand over her mouth. 

Calm down, she told herself, and let out a shivery sigh. Tiredness was pushing her towards hysteria.

Food or sauna? No question, especially if guys like Frohike were cooking. Scully pulled the door open.

"Come on in, you're letting the heat out." The soft voice came from the far corner of the small room, and Scully stifled the urge to reach for her gun as her heart rate accelerated. 

She blinked through the darkness, feeling off-guard, woozy and vulnerable. Relax, she told herself, you're among friends now. She shut the door behind her and let her eyes adjust. The only source of light was the single fluorescent tube in the corridor outside.

"You must be Dana," said another richer, deeper voice. A naked woman on the upper shelf propped herself on her elbows. "Mel said you might be in here," she said, then lay back on the bench, eyes closed and her hands resting comfortably across her abdomen. 

It took Scully a moment to work out that Mel was Frohike. "I'm Linda Carlyle," the woman went on. "That's my daughter Aracelis." 

The owner of the first voice, a round-faced girl in her late teens who was sitting against the wall, nodded at Scully. "Ari," she said. "No one can remember Aracelis and it sounds like a cheap Chilean wine." There was a soft snort from the upper bench.

Scully sat on the lower bench across from Ari, feeling more than a little self-conscious, and wondered what was appropriate post-apocalyptic sauna etiquette. She settled on hello and an attempted smile. It felt as weird as her laughter a few minutes ago. "I'm Dana Scully."

"Mel's been wondering where you were," said Linda from her spot on the top bench, her eyes closed. "Just about every day, actually. You guys came from DC, right?"

The heat settled over Scully like a blanket. The sauna was dimly lit by the tiny window in the door. She pulled her legs up onto the bench and lay down on her back. It was the first time in weeks she'd felt completely warm.

"That's right, D.C.," she finally responded. She couldn't make her voice any stronger, and it came out in a whisper.

There was a long pause, punctuated only by the hiss as Ari sprinkled some water on the hot stones in the corner. 

Scully breathed deeply, allowing the heat to soak some of the tension from her muscles. For once she didn't see anything when she closed her eyes but the darkness behind her own eyelids. No bodies, no faces.

"We live -- lived -- in Louisville," said Ari. "It's a long way from DC. Was it bad?" She sounded tentative, her voice soft.

"Ari -- " Linda's voice warned from above Scully. "Let her be."

Scully waved a hand gently and dropped it back onto her stomach. She traced the ridges of her gunshot scar, even now unused to the rude interruption of smooth flesh. She was beginning to sweat, and her skin was slick.

"It was bad," she answered after a moment. "And we didn't even go through the cities. We saw -- we saw a lot of death."

"But surely it's not so bad," Ari began. "I mean, in the country..."

"It's bad everywhere," Scully snapped and then pressed her lips together so she couldn't say anything else.

No one answered her; what was there to say, after all? They were lucky to have been locked away here, Scully thought with a touch of bitterness. She squeezed her eyes shut.

"So how long have you known Mel?" 

Scully blinked at Linda's voice; she might have dozed off. "Oh, Frohike? Um, about six years now." She craned her neck back but she couldn't see Linda's face from here.

"And you're with the FBI, right?"

"I was." She murmured. "Uh, how about you?"

There was a rustle above as Linda moved, then a pair of feet with bright purple-painted toenails swung down next to Scully's face. "I'm a geneticist. I'm doing my post-doc here in Louisville, studying slugs. Or I was, at least." Linda shrugged, and grabbed a towel, got ready to leave. "Guess I should have studied infectious diseases instead."

Linda was a strong-bodied woman in her late forties, Scully guessed. If you didn't see her face or hands you might think she was no older than thirty-five. She was stocky and blonde where her daughter was tall, dark and curvy but the two women had the same warm, brown eyes.

"Dana." Linda's voice interrupted her reverie. "Don't stay in the sauna too long, you'll get dehydrated."

"Sure," she said softly, and raised a hand as the two other women left. "Sure."

And then she was alone in the dark and the warmth, and it was nearly enough.

**~+~+~**

If this was the start of a brave new world, they were going to have to get rid of the mirrors. Too depressing. Mulder turned his face this way and that. He looked black and white in the flickering candlelight, as if he were a desperate, thin-faced criminal caught on grainy surveillance footage.

He had emerged from the shower rooms, his skin itchy inside ill-fitting borrowed clothes, to find Frohike leaning against a wall, waiting to show him around.

"You kept the beard, huh? I heard Grizzly Adams is the hot look this fall." Frohike grinned, scarily cheerful now. "Come on, I got to show you this place."

It was almost dark as they walked from the small shower block into the larger building. This was a decommissioned military compound and bore all its hallmarks -- like long featureless hallways painted in sludgy colors. Only every third or fourth fluorescent tube was lit.

Frohike was babbling enthusiastically about electricity and water supplies. Mulder was trying not to tune him out but everything felt so unreal. Frohike looked just as he always had the day after the paper's deadline, weary, scruffy and eager to share the latest scoop.

"Jack picked this place because it's easy to defend than most places -- you got the fence all round, the river blocking one approach," he said. "There are empty houses nearer the river but most people prefer to stay here in the main building, it's safer and he knew it would be the only place we could get the power going."

Frohike stopped and looked at him, expecting a response. Mulder nodded. "We got a generator rigged and the fuel should tide us over the winter and into spring if we power just this building and the gym," he went on, then gave a twisted smile. "We've even got a sauna. We heat stones in the furnace or in the back of the ovens when we cook, carry 'em over in firebuckets."

What did he want, a standing ovation? Mulder grunted and tried to readjust the straps of the backpack so they came down on unbruised skin for a change. 

"Want me to take that?" Frohike asked, holding out his hand.

Mulder shook his head. Frohike shrugged and led him further through the complex. "Ain't so far to your room now, anyhow. It's arranged so that we're all in corridors off the main living area. Jack thinks it's easier to get a community going that way."

Well, wasn't Jack the all-knowing fucking messiah? 

The carpeting matched the walls and the cubicles: a dusty mauve, scuffed and scarred from years of use. The paint on the woodwork was cracked, and the ventilation system wheezed as it pumped warm air through the rooms. They walked through a small maze of cubicles, some with pallets under their desks, until they reached the cafeteria.

The main body of the hall was filled with long tables with chipped melamine tops. Some had bench seats next to them, others had rickety chairs pushed beneath. "This is the best place to meet. We usually all eat dinner together here. Saves food and energy, plus we get to talk."

"Regular scout camp," Mulder muttered. "Do we get to sing songs and roast weenies round the fire too?"

There was a small creaking sound as fists wrapped in leather fingerless gloves clenched and flexed but when he answered he sounded good-humored enough. "Only on special occasions." 

After days of dead air between him and Scully, Mulder was pleased to see that he could still push someone's buttons -- then guilt hit. "Uh... how many people did you say are here, Frohike?"

Frohike smiled. "Almost fifty."

Mulder shook his head. Only fifty, holed up in a grimy labyrinth like lab rats, with no idea what winter would bring. The height of their achievement had been getting the power on again. Was this what he had dragged Scully across hundreds of miles of country for?

He wandered over to the corner nearest the door where there were two moth-eaten sofas, a couple of grubby easy chairs and two shelving units crammed with books. Mulder ran a finger along the mismatched spines, an awkward glissando. 

When he first looked at it, it appeared to Mulder that there was no order at all, but look closer and it was arranged with a weird kind of logic. An Austen omnibus edition was next to Astrophysics, Shakespeare sharing shelf space with the collected Sandman editions.

He studied the shelves. It reminded him of a brain-mapping system he'd tried with his X-Files before Scully came along and insisted on prosaic A-Z cabinets and everything in its right place. All that information he'd had, all the links he'd made, and he still hadn't been able to make sense of it.

"Alphabetical by title and/or author," he murmured. "That's... innovative."

He was surprised to see Frohike wince. "Yeah. That's Langly. We pooled most of our books and he decided this is how they should be filed. He's kind of insistent about it. It's one of his ..." Frohike waved a gloved hand as if that would conjure up the right word. "...things."

"Conan the Librarian, huh?" Mulder's mouth turned up in a brief smile. This time Frohike didn't return it. "God. Here be geeks. How many copies of Lord of the Rings?"

"Eleven at the last count. Don't worry, man, I'm sure someone brought their Playboy collection." 

Mulder wasn't in the mood for wisecracks. He wasn't in the mood for company of any kind. "Can we finish the grand tour later, Frohike?"

"Uh. Yeah. Sure." Frohike looked disappointed, but nodded and led him out of the hall, down another featureless corridor. In one of the rooms someone was playing something plaintive on a guitar. They rounded a corner and Frohike pushed open a brown door.

Mulder hoped that it was a trick of tired eyes that made him see small shapes scuttling into dark corners.

It was a small office with a single mattress on the floor against one wall and some blankets and a pillow tossed on it. There was a desk and chair against the other and a small sink in the corner with a doorless cupboard below it, a mirror above. Frohike held a hand out, like the gracious hostess displaying a sumptuous guest room. Mulder wanted to laugh at the absurdity of it. 

"We saved you this," Frohike said.

"Hey, Fro, you shouldn't have." 

Frohike frowned. "It *was* cleaned out, Mulder, I swear. It's just that we were expecting you a whole lot earlier than this."

"Sorry, Global armageddon does tend to put a crimp in a guy's travel plans." 

He felt a mess of anger boil up inside him, and willed Frohike to go away, but his friend just looked at him with something a little too like pity. Mulder turned away before any questions could be asked.

Light barely seeped into the narrow cinderblock room past thick wool; a ragged square of brown blanket had been stapled across the high, wide window. Frohike saw Mulder staring at it. "Blackout curtain. We were worried about other people knowing that a whole lot of us are here. We're using candles where we can. All the lights everywhere go off at 9 o'clock anyhow."

"Frohike, this is a broom closet."

Frohike looked awkward. "Well, janitor's office, technically but --"

Mulder looked at the scuffed paintwork, the upturned beer crate that served as a bedside table. "Jesus. Are we all in places like this?"

Frohike's expression turned thunderous. "No, the rest of us are booked into the fucking Hilton. What do you think?"

Mulder grimaced, and tried to pick up his pack. A strap broke and an embarrassing sprawl of dirty clothing tumbled out to make bright patterns against the gray. 

Frohike's face softened a little. "Okay, it is small, but least you got your own room, man. Most of us are sharing space and it'll only get worse as the fuel begins to run out. What happened to you guys anyhow? And I thought you were bringing Scully's mom."

"Damn it, Frohike, not now." Mulder leaned against the desk. "Scully's mom died a couple weeks ago," he added. "It's part of the reason we're late."

"Aw, Jesus," Frohike murmured, laying a hand on his shoulder, and his sympathy made the emotions surge up through Mulder, until grief felt like a logjam in his throat and the pressure behind it building, building.

"Look I'll give you the full report later. Just... not now."

Frohike nodded, backing away. "Sure, Mulder, take it easy. It's only half an hour before dinner. I'll come get you then, introduce you." 

And somehow it was twilight and Mulder was in the safe place he'd been running towards for weeks -- and he didn't feel any different. He wondered how Scully was, whether she was finding it as hard to adjust. She'd disappeared inside herself, so deep that it worried and infuriated him at the same time.

Voices moved down the corridor outside. A couple of moments later there was a light rapping on his door. Frohike peered around the jamb. "Hey, Mulder, chow time," he said. 

"Be right there," Mulder replied, giving his reflection one last baleful glare before leaving the room. In the hallway, a single fluorescent tube buzzed and flickered, its light harsh after the warm glow of the candle.

Conversation echoed faintly through the corridors accompanied by a sweet scent that it took his brain some time to identify as cooked meat. His mouth watered at the thought of something he hadn't personally pried out of a can and burned over a portable stove.

"Mulder!" The voice was a reedy tenor, unusually high with delight: he recognized it immediately and turned. Byers strode down the corridor, his face stretched in a broad smile. He looked a little thinner but his beard was still trimmed, his open-necked cotton shirt was unrumpled and he still looked as if he had ironed the creases into his gray pants with a ruler and a set square. It was comforting somehow.

For one scary moment, he thought Byers was going to hug him, but by the time he reached Mulder, he was simply reaching out for a handshake. "Good to see you," Byers said, taking Mulder's right hand in both of his. "It's really, really good to see you." 

Byers gestured towards the dining room and they began walking towards the source of the noise. "So, Mulder, we were expecting you weeks ago. What happened to you?"

Byers' voice trailed off and Mulder's peripheral vision caught Frohike grimacing and making a gesture -- probably hacker semaphore for "leave it alone, man." 

"Food first," Byers said firmly. 

"So, where's Langly?" Mulder asked.

Byers shuffled his feet, looked down for a second. "Probably in the dining hall. He likes it in there." Mulder spotted the glances that flashed between his friends but neither was revealing anything. He filed the question away for later. Looked like he wasn't the only one with stories that hurt too much to tell.


	3. Chapter 3

Somehow, now that it was soaked in lamplight and filled with the chink of metal on plates and the hum of chatter, the cafeteria didn't seem so scruffy and pathetic. There were about forty people in there, of all ages. 

Mulder watched from the doorway as a couple of girls and a boy, all under 10, were playing with a battered Connect 4 set near the bookshelves. A blonde woman wearing jeans and a blue sweater sat close to them, reading a dog-eared copy of The Economist but keeping half an eye on the children.

They were a ragtag bunch, as if a gaggle of college computer majors, a MUFON conference and a survivalists' group had treble-booked a lecture hall. 

Someone laughed and Mulder expected a shocked hush to fall across the tables but others joined in. It was all so ...normal. 

His eyes were drawn to the far side of the room. It was the first time since Heniston that he hadn't seen Scully with her hair scraped back. Instead, it curled damply around her reddened face and appeared to be several shades lighter. She was sitting with a couple of women, two of maybe fifteen women in the room. The other two were talking, darting glances at her; Scully was looking out across the packed tables, her mind a million miles away again.

He felt a hand on his upper arm. "Come on, Mulder, the food'll get cold," Byers said, leading him in. "And to be honest, one of its few charms is that it's hot."

Frohike grunted. "Its only freaking charm, more like. Cynthia's sick again so Jon is cooking tonight."

"Oh, Lord," Byers muttered faintly. 

At that moment Scully looked directly at Mulder and her mouth curved upwards in a tight, awkward smile. He became aware that the hall had fallen silent and forty pairs of eyes were trained on him.

"Should I be hearing dueling banjos?" he asked.

"It's just that not many people know how to find us and you're our only new arrivals in more than a week," Byers said.

"The only ones we let in, you mean," Frohike muttered. "And anyway, they know who you are."

"They *know* who I am?" Mulder let displeasure thread through his tone. "How would they 'know' me?"

Byers looked a little embarrassed. "Well, these are our kind of people, Mulder. Hackers, truth-seekers, independent thinkers..."

"Psychos," muttered Frohike.

"...and they keep a track of events. There's only one person here who had never heard of The Magic Bullet newsletter or The Lone Gunman."

"Wow. All 47 of your readers in the same place."

"Fuck you, man," Frohike said, but smiled.

"Put two and two together and add in the 'net, and M.F. Luder's forays into the journalistic arts and most people know who you are," Byers added. 

"You have a certain notoriety in this sort of community, Mr. Mulder." The voice behind him was low, throaty and commanding, like Skinner's, every word clipped as if the speaker resented time spent talking when he could be doing something.

Mulder turned. The owner of the business-like voice was black, powerfully built, maybe five foot eight. Close up, Mulder could tell that the man was older than he had first thought, perhaps late 50s. He was clean-shaven with skin like worn, creased leather; laughter lines scored deeply into it as he smiled. 

He wore a blue cotton shirt and navy pants like it was a uniform, a bunch of keys jangling like windchimes at his belt. "Your reputation precedes you," the man said and for a second, Mulder was reminded of Kersh and his headmasterly disdain for everything Mulder stood for.

Then Mulder sensed a familiar presence by his side as if it were a source of heat. Scully had joined him in the center of the hall and was staring at the man with the same blend of interest and cool, detached scrutiny she had used to disconcert a thousand suspects.

"As does yours, Dr. Scully," the man added, and the smile finally reached his narrowed brown eyes. He held a hand out. "Jack Hughes."

So this was the great and all-powerful Jack, Mulder thought. Everything about him proclaimed him to be a soldier, from his ramrod-straight back to the way his hand had snapped forward, as though the handshake was an aborted salute. 

There was a beat of silence and then Scully stepped forward and took Jack's hand. "Pleased to meet you, sir," she said, then looked abashed as if she could sense Mulder's irritation flickering at the honorific. 

"Age..." Mulder began, stretching out his hand, and then paused. "Mulder. Just Mulder these days."

Jack nodded. "We're a small community as you can see," he said, and then, raising his voice to encourage all the hall to listen. "But Mr. Mulder, Dr. Scully, you're welcome here."

There were murmurs of assent from the people sitting around them. Jack ushered them back towards the table Scully had left. The rest of the group seemed to take it as a sign that the show was over. They still attracted curious glances but the talking and clatter of cutlery on mismatched china resumed.

**~+~+~**

Frohike listened as Jack began to ask his friends about their journey, polite questions but in a tone that demanded answers. Scully's answers were clipped and shorn of all but the most basic information. Mulder wasn't speaking unless addressed directly.

Yes, they'd come from Washington right after the electromagnetic pulse that knocked out the electricity and every damned thing else. 

No, they hadn't taken the direct route. They had stopped off in Heniston for three weeks to help out, then carried on to Louisville, where the truck broke down. They'd walked the rest of the way. 

Yes, they'd encountered the sickness in Heniston but no, they couldn't do anything about it. No, they hadn't been ill.

Even Jack knew he was getting the heavily abridged version but Frohike wasn't sure he was capable of letting it alone. Jack felt that every scrap of information was vital, debriefing was a dish to be served immediately and all that other military horseshit, but Frohike could tell that Mulder's patience was wearing thin.

Frohike contemplated telling Jack to back off but decided that a subtler approach was best. "You guys must be starving," he said, addressing Mulder and Scully. "C'mon and get something." He led them toward the serving hatch. "The food may taste like the scrapings from between my toes but it goes fast."

He caught Linda's eye as he passed; she appeared amused by his mother hen act. He shot her a quick grin and set off across the hall.

He stopped in front of the hatch and Mulder shuffled into him -- he must be so tired that he was on autopilot. Frohike peered into the serving hatch and banged on the half-closed metal shutter.

"Yo! Service!"

Today's cook appeared from round the corner. He was whipcord-thin, balding, very tall and in his mid-30s. He flashed a grin at Frohike. "See, you *want* my food now," he said, a thick glottal accent slowing the words.

"Yeah, well, I hear you're moving towards the edible end of the cuisine spectrum this evening and I need to taste this miracle myself."

Jon raised his eyebrows. "Hah. You're lucky we're still speaking to you after your last turn on the cooking rota. What was that anyhow?"

"Boeuf bourgignon. And jealousy is an ugly emotion, my friend," Frohike replied. "Jon Kjartansson, this is Mulder and Dana Scully."

Jon held out a large spindly-fingered hand streaked with dishwater. "Glad you got here. We've heard a lot about you," he said with a broad smile.

Mulder shot Frohike a pointed look but smiled at Jon and shook his hand. Scully nodded politely. Jon doled out two bowls of a thick brown stew larded with gray lumps vaguely reminiscent of meat. Frohike looked over his shoulder and saw that Jack was three tables away talking to Grant about plans for the gardens. The man never did know when to let up. Crisis averted, for now.

"So how's your boy?" he asked Jon.

Jon scowled. "Not good. Still wheezing."

"Scully's a doctor. She'll get him well again."

"I'll do what?" Scully asked from behind Frohike. He turned to see her taking a bowl of stew from Mulder. She was swaying on her feet, more tired than he had seen her in years.

"We got a couple of people ill. Some nasty flu and stuff."

The bowl tilted in Scully's hands, a wave of brown sauce spilling over its edge, splattering onto the grimy black and white tile. 

"Scully, it might not be the same thing..." Mulder said, as if trying to convince himself.

She ignored the plea in his voice, and set the bowl on the table, looking as grim as she had when they first arrived. "Show me," she demanded.

Her hands had a slight quiver. They probably were both in that stage of fatigue where walls bend around you and your eyes conjure specters out of shadows. Frohike had been there himself. 

"It's not this plague thing," he told her. 

"Frohike, I've seen this in action. If this is..."

"It's not." Frohike cut her off. "Trust me. No one's dying here. It can wait until after dinner."

He looked at Mulder for support. There was a long moment of silence. Then Mulder sighed and then said: "Scully, come eat. Five minutes won't make a difference." He shambled off to the table like a sleepwalker.

Scully's eyes were squeezed shut. She breathed heavily for a moment. Then she drew herself up straight, and Frohike sensed that she was about to argue again.

He picked up her bowl and handed it to her, one corner of his mouth curling into an encouraging smile as he sucked a droplet of spilled stew from between his finger and thumb.

"Come on, be brave," he said. "The food ain't that bad."

She let out a soft choke -- call it half a laugh if he felt generous.

"Scully, it's just the usual winter stuff -- colds, flu, bronchitis..." This time she surrendered, and turned to follow Mulder to the table.

Frohike offered up a silent prayer: Let me be right.

**~+~+~**

Oh, God. Not again.

Scully stood in the doorway, unable to make herself take the last step forward. She should have known they would have sickness here, too.

It was one of the larger conference rooms, filled with an assortment of cots. There were still a couple of old Army flow charts tacked up on the walls, yellowing at the edges. A table pushed against the far wall under the windows held bottles of water, a slim assortment of medicines, and a small camp stove. Someone had rigged up clothes lines across the room and sheets stamped faintly with "Property of the U.S. Army" could be drawn across and pegged in place to form curtains around several of the beds.

"Excuse me, Dr. Scully?" 

She started at the touch on her shoulder and moved into the conference room. She looked around more slowly before turning her attention to Jack, who was accompanied by a balding young man dressed in a long, thick multi-colored sweater of the kind usually worn only by fashion-impaired students. "This is Alan. He's been looking after things here."

It wasn't as bad as she had feared -- only three of the cots were occupied, and none of the patients appeared to be in any distress. Certainly there wasn't any of the painful coughing that had been the soundtrack in Heniston. 

"I'm glad you're here," Alan said, smiling nervously. "I've been filling in -- did a year at med school --but none of us have any real medical training." He crossed the room to the table and lit the small stove. "This is the only way we have to sterilize our equipment at the moment; I'm afraid we're very short on anything but basic medical supplies." He inserted an elderly glass thermometer into the pot balanced on top of the stove, and then looked back at her. "Would you like to meet your patients?"

Jack hung back, studying her reactions. Scully fought the urge to close her eyes in denial, and simply nodded. 

In the end, it was much better than Scully had expected. None of the three had the mutant tuberculosis she had seen in Tennessee; instead they suffered from a bad head-cold, a nasty case of bronchitis exacerbated by smoking, and asthma. There wasn't much she could do for the young man with the cold, but at least she could reassure everyone they weren't about to die. The woman with bronchitis needed antibiotics, but she wasn't in any danger at the moment. 

The last was the asthma patient. This was a boy of maybe seven or eight, with hair that looked almost white in the dim lighting. He was crouched over a large, battered book, reading it by the light of a cheap keyring flashlight.

"This is Sean, " said Alan. The boy looked up; his eyes were a remarkable dark blue and his lashes were long and dark. 

"What are you reading?" she asked. He picked the book up and handed it to her wordlessly. She didn't recognise the language but the illustration was familiar: a woodcut image of a warrior on his horse, staring out of the page, two ravens flying in his wake. "Odin?" He nodded solemnly. 

He flinched a little as she put the cold stethoscope against his chest and asked him to breathe out. She dug deep and found a smile for him, which he returned, shyly. The boy's dark blue eyes focused on her as she listened to his lungs, and checked his pulse and temperature. She was sure his eyes followed her as she turned away.

Finished, Scully moved over to the table, and nodded for Alan to join her. Jack stood by the door, watching. Scully had the sense that she was being measured for this task, judged. It wasn't a feeling she cared for.

"Is this it for your medical supplies?" She asked, casting a bleak eye over the array. There were some bandages, a bottle of hydrogen peroxide, and an assortment of painkillers. Nothing prescription, and no antibiotics. Alan nodded.

Jack walked toward her. His manner was gentler now, very different from the colonel demanding answers that he had been in the hall earlier. "Pretty much. We -- I had expected a local doctor to join us, and he had promised to bring an extensive supply of medical equipment and drugs, but . . . well, he never showed. I don't know what happened to him."

Scully could see how tired he was. She wondered how much willpower it took to hold a community like this together and felt the odd need to reassure him, to make him feel better. 

"All right. Alan's done a good job. I think Cynthia's going to be okay; we need to build up her immune system again. And we definitely need antibiotics but none of them have the tuberculosis I saw out there."

Jack didn't smile, but his face relaxed enormously, and Scully realized what a frightening thing it must have been to allow those who were sick to stay in the compound, given the infection and death rates of the illness outside. Jack had taken a great risk, one that might not have paid off. She wasn't sure she would have taken that risk herself.

"Dr. Scully, you have no idea --" He broke off as another man entered the room. 

"Hey, Jon," said Alan. Scully looked up. It was the cook from earlier. He crossed to Sean's cot, and crouched down to talk to him. It looked as if the boy was asking for a bedtime story from the book. Alan crossed over to sit by Cynthia's bed. Their conversation was soft and punctuated by her wheezy laughter.

Scully and Jack were silent, watching. Scully looked out the window when Jon leaned forward to kiss Sean's forehead. The sky had cleared after sunset, and a hint of color remained on the western horizon, painting the sky faintly with orange and purple stripes. Alan lit a candle. The room was quiet enough that Scully could even hear the faint honking of an over-late flock of geese on its way south.

It was early in the winter yet; the worst of the weather hadn't hit. She wondered if this little group of anarchists had thought to lay in enough fuel to get them through the winter. If they didn't have enough fuel, they would have to close off a lot of these buildings and rooms, maybe move everyone into one place to conserve heat. She didn't want to. She wanted to stay quiet in the little room Linda had shown her on the second floor. She didn't want to deal with people, with patients, with Mulder.

She realized Jack was speaking to her again. "--to be okay, right Doctor Scully?"

"Oh. Yes," she said, turning to face Jack and Jon. "Cynthia and your son should both be fine. And you both should call me Dana, or just Scully. 'Doctor' seems so formal here." 

Jon was absurdly tall, Scully realized; he had several inches even on Mulder, and when he looked at her he canted forward at his hips. She was reminded of the wire-frame birds some people kept on their office desks, that rocked back and forth for hours.

"Doctor-- excuse me, Dana," he said, and smiled. "Thank you very much."

"I haven't done anything yet, Jon," she responded. "But I think he'll be fine as soon as we get some medicine for him. Jack, do you think we can get some medical supplies soon? Winter is coming and people will be getting ill, even if it's not the epidemic."

Jack nodded briskly, his dark eyes intent. "It sounds like it's time for a trip into town. You'll need to tell me what to look for. I'll start making arrangements." With a rapid-fire smile at them both, Jack headed out the door. The room seemed oddly silent then, as if Jack had taken the air with him, and they were left with vacuum. 

After a long moment, Scully turned to the table and began to sort through the meager supplies, inventorying what they had and calculating what they might need. "How did you get here, Jon?"

"I was at a biochemistry conference in Chicago when a friend of mine called me. He said I had to leave immediately, and come here."

"And you did?" They had very little in the way of bandages or disinfectants. "You must trust your friend greatly."

"Yes, I do. And it worked -- I am safe, with my son. But my wife is at home, in Reykjavik. She still had classes, you see." His voice dropped. "She was supposed to meet us in Chicago in three more days so we could visit her parents. I don't know where she is. Whether she is safe. "

The sky was almost fully dark now. Jon pulled a pack of matches out of his pocket and lit two more candles in the middle of the table. The light didn't go very far, but it was enough to illuminate the scrap of paper on which Scully was taking notes. After a long moment she looked up at Jon. He was picking at the wax built up on the table, glancing at her and then down again. His eyes, even in the dimness, were the same color as his son's.

She was the doctor, the expert, the FBI agent. She was supposed to be the one who knew.

"I'm sorry, Jon, I don't -- we haven't heard anything from overseas. We haven't heard anything from just about anywhere." Scully couldn't look at him as she said it. Stars were coming out. There was one spark of light, probably a planet, resting on the top of the oak tree outside the building.

She didn't know if they would.

**~+~+~**

//December 6//

The remote December sun hung low and pale in a sickly sky as Mulder let the door to the main block swing shut, trying to remember the way from yesterday.

Frosty air pinched at his face and his breath billowed from his nostrils. Seven-thirty am and the compound was stirring. He had wanted to get away before everyone else was up but he'd slept badly until about 4, then like the dead after that, so his only option now was stealth. 

It was weird. They'd kept going for so long, hoping to find the others and now all he wanted was time on his own, to process. 

He began the short walk to the gate, boots crunching on frost-glazed snow, working out what he would tell the guy on guard duty as he left.

"Yo, Mulder!" 

Shit. Frohike. He turned. The little man had emerged from the gym block with a towel draped over his shoulder. Mulder nodded as Frohike came to meet him. "Pumping iron again?"

"Oh yeah, I'm The Rock's tougher buddy, I'm a man mountain," Frohike flexed a arm, then fell into step with Mulder. "You think Scully will appreciate my manly physique?"

"I'm sure you're filling her wildest dreams as we speak."

Frohike shot him a wry grin. "So, what gives?"

"Just taking a morning stroll."

"In the snow?" Frohike asked. Steam was rising from his wet hair.

"Okay, so it's a long, cold morning stroll," Mulder said, lengthening his stride. "Gotta go."

Frohike moved into his path again, like a headmaster blocking the escape route of a rebellious student. Mulder sighed. "I'm just gonna walk back to the truck, see if I can get it started. If I can't, I'll drag the stuff back myself. Can't leave it there or it'll be stolen."

"Did you leave much?" Frohike asked. "Looked to me yesterday like you were carrying the contents of a Kmart on your backs."

Mulder shook his head. "Well, no, we already carried most of it. But there's stuff I wouldn't want to lose. Stuff I wouldn't want Scully to lose."

"Scully not going with you?"

"No." He knew his voice was too taut, a giveaway, but the last thing he wanted was to repeat the miserable trudge of yesterday, the way her silence had felt like blame.

Frohike was staring, sympathy in his eyes. Mulder felt his temper snap, as if it were a plank that had given way under his weight, rather than something he could control. 

"No, Frohike. She's a doctor, she's busy, she's already tired and she's got people to look after now, a job to do. Whereas me, I could sit on my ass reading eleven versions of Lord of the fucking Rings and no one would notice -- or else I could do something useful and fetch the damned truck."

Frohike held his hands up in surrender. "Okay, okay. A laudable aim, my friend, but she's gonna be mad. It's not safe out there."

"I'm a big boy now, they let me out on my own a lot." He sighed as he saw Frohike frown again. "It's okay, if anyone comes near me I'll shoot them."

Frohike appeared unmoved by the sarcasm. "What about the sickness?" he asked. "You gonna shoot the bugs too?"

"Maybe, if I see 'em first."

Frohike sighed and a jet of white air shot upwards like the plume from a steam train. "And you didn't ask her, right? What the hell is with you two anyhow, you have a bust-up?"

Mulder shook his head. He could have handled an argument but he couldn't stand her defeated silence. The last time he had tried to reach her, she'd been repelled.

"I have to go," he said, and made to walk away. 

Frohike wrapped a hand around Mulder's forearm. "Wait. You can't go alone. I'll grab the van. There's about enough gas left in there to get us there and back. When I get the truck fixed, you can follow me home."

There was no way round it, he was going to have company. He sighed. "*When* you get it fixed? That's confidence."

"I have a talent for auto mechanics," Frohike said. "It's one of my many gifts. Failing that, we'll tow."


	4. Chapter 4

Almost eight am, and they were making slow progress. Yesterday's snow had partially melted and then frosted over until it rose in ridges over the pavement like reptile skin. The wheels of the van hummed and jigged as they slithered past fallen branches and abandoned cars.

Mulder sensed the questions simmering in Frohike's mind, none of which he felt like answering. He flicked the cassette deck on, and hiked up the volume.

"Twenty, twenty, twenty-four hours to go, I wanna be sedated..."

Wincing, he flicked it off again.

"Ah, The Ramones..." murmured Frohike, "a perfect song for every occasion."

"I guess there's no point trying the radio."

"I don't think the radio'll be playing the Ramones any more, man."

"Frohike," Mulder said, "what's going on with Langly?"

Frohike's knuckles tensed into whiteness around the wheel.

**~+~+~**

Eight-thirty and fields dotted with farmhouses were giving way to lines of neat but silent suburban houses. The van crawled along in a low gear so it made as little noise as possible. It was just as well, as Mulder had to listen hard to catch Frohike's words; his voice was a scrape of broken glass, scratchy and low.

"...we all saw it, man, but Langly ... he took it bad. They were all dead, all of them, and Mikey -- well, they kept Mikey alive a long time."

He drew in a sharp breath. "Bad as anything I've seen and I've seen some nasty shit in my time. And then we found a wreck a few days later -- a bus and three cars. Looked like a couple of kids had survived the crash but no one was alive when we got there. And you know what he's like about kids..."

Actually, Mulder didn't know what Langly was like about kids. He'd always thought he knew his friends pretty well but it appeared he'd got that wrong too. 

"We did what we could, which was practically fucking *nothing*. And then we split. Byers was driving, I was navigating and neither of us wanted to speak. Langly went wonky about when we found Mikey, and only got worse after that for a while. Didn't want to talk, didn't seem to know where he was, doing weird shit. 

"Sometimes, he'll like, snap out of it for a couple hours or maybe a day, and you get a glimpse of the inner punkass we know and love and then, boom, nothing again. Disappears off inside himself."

Mulder heard Scully's voice in his head, wry and warm like it used to be, as she'd told him how Langly had keeled over at an autopsy. "I think it was all the blood. Maybe he's squeamish." And then, because she'd forgiven them for the Las Vegas incident by that point: "Poor guy."

**~+~+~**

By eight-fifty, Frohike had turned the van onto a state route running parallel to the highway. Based on what Mulder had told him, Frohike thought it would shorten the trip to the truck.

"...she just got sicker and sicker, and there was nothing Scully could do. Of course, she didn't see it that way."

"Of course not." Frohike would lay bets that Scully hadn't slept that whole time.

"We ended up waiting it out in a Motel 6 two, three days out of Heniston. Maggie was too sick to move. She lasted maybe two days. I buried her in the woods. No marker."

"Jesus, I'm sorry, man." Frohike clasped Mulder's shoulder for a second and then returned his hand to the wheel.

"Scully's the one you should say that to. It was her mom."

"Yeah, but nevertheless, I'm sorry." 

Mulder shrugged. Frohike looked across and tried to catch his eye. "Was there something else? Yesterday, you both seemed kind of, well, off-whack."

Mulder stared resolutely ahead. "It's fine. We're just tired."

"Is that all?"

"Yeah. She's... well, we've been through a lot. It's fine, really."

Frohike let the lie go. Mulder and Scully had their own weird rhythms of disagreement; during that business with the Fowley chick he'd learned the hard way that intervening seldom helped. They'd be over it soon enough.

"You do not want this back at the compound, believe me," Mulder said. "Even if it means locking the whole world out. It's like a turbo version of tuberculosis and it's engineered to be lethal."

Well, that about confirmed all their suspicions. Frohike nodded: "Yeah. It's in Louisville already."

Mulder looked thoughtful. "How do you know for sure?"

"Jack goes to Louisville every week. "

"Just Jack?"

"Yeah."

"Why?"

"Because we're trying to maintain some kind of quarantine, even though we let you guys in. And we're pretty well-stocked at the compound and we don't want to lead people back there, sick or not. Jack has a contact he speaks to."

"What sort of contact?"

"An old friend of his. Guy in the emergency administration." Mulder's eyebrows began to raise. 

Frohike cursed to himself. Until they had met him, Jack had been a hard sell even to Byers, who knew that he'd met the guy back at the dawn of creation, let alone Langly. 

"It's okay, Mulder, I know it looks a little hinky but Jack's an old friend of mine."

"Of *yours*?" Mulder asked incredulously. "Since when did you have friends in the military?"

"He's a pal from way back."

"How far back?"

"Twenty-five years. No ... longer... we were in Europe at the same time."

Mulder was still staring, obviously waiting for an explanation. Frohike sighed. "Look, way back at the dawn of time, when dinosaurs roamed the Earth, yadda yadda yadda, I was with the Company in Europe. CIA surveillance. I didn't last long. Jack and me, well ... we kept in touch, kinda, after I turned away from the dark side of the force."

Mulder nodded. "So, how well do you know him now?" 

"I'd vouch for him. The Louisville guys trust him."

"It's the military who are spreading this thing..."

"Yeah but..." Frohike began but Mulder cut him off almost immediately.

"How do you know that Jack's not going to come back one day and say 'Hey guys, some nice warm blankets for you' and the next thing you know, we're all coughing up a lung, that son of a bitch has skipped off to join his friends and the Louisville area's little dissident problem is all sewn up?"

Okay, that was enough. "Because I *know* him, Mulder, like I know you. And contrary to your assumption, I didn't fall off the turnip truck yesterday," Frohike said, riled because Mulder's questions were ones he asked himself in dark moments. 

"We checked him out like he was a stranger. Several times and we ain't amateurs at that, as you well know. His story checks out. We've been compiling information on all of this for years; we haven't been sitting around holding our dicks, investigating garbage monsters and mutant dogs..."

"It was a wangshang dhole," Mulder muttered. "And you're out of line."

"Wangshang what-the-hell-ever. He's clean."

There was a silence that stretched to breaking point. Mulder stared out of the window, his eyes flinty and narrowed.

"Okay. Clean as far as we know." Frohike tried once more. "Look. I believe he's a good guy and I keep my eyes and ears open. He checked out. That's the best I can do these days."

It didn't seem to have much effect. Frohike sighed. After a moment Mulder, sounding calm again, said: "Isn't Jack worried about coming into Louisville, what with the disease here? Doesn't he ever seem alarmed?"

Frohike thought back. Jack would usually take a motorcycle twice a week and disappear. The man talked a good game about how dangerous it was outside, how virulent the sickness was and how careful he was, but he never seemed scared to go into the middle of Louisville.

Whereas Frohike, he was only here because Mulder would have gone alone if he hadn't and he wasn't ready to lose his friend again.

Jack never even mentioned being worried at all, but Frohike had always written that off to Jack played the stoneface, hero type -- but what if...

"Okay, Mulder, what do you know?" he asked.

"Nothing," Mulder said. "This is our turn."

Frohike mumbled a few of his favorite oaths under his breath and swung off to the left.

**~+~+~**

When they reached the truck, it was a wreck. It had been stripped of almost everything but the padding on the seats. Someone had wrenched off the steering wheel. The remains of the camping equipment, the supplies they had picked up along the journey, they were all gone. A few scraps of clothing and odd pieces of paper were strewn across the bed of the truck but they had large muddy boot prints across them. Whatever else had been in the truck was gone.

"Dammit!" Mulder kicked the truck's remaining inflated back tire. "What are these people, locusts? We were away, what, 18 hours?"

"You really pick your spots for a breakdown, Mulder. This part of the city is bandit country. I'm going to have to work miracles. Keep a lookout."

Mulder scuffed disconsolately at the tarmac with his shoe as he scanned the neighborhood. "I should've come back last night," he muttered. 

"Nah, you were dead on your feet, dude." Frohike popped the hood, then buried himself deep in the engine, trying not to flash butt cleavage at the cold sky. 

They were fucked. Mulder hadn't changed the oil since J. Edgar was in charge and the engine had finally seized up. Absent access to a full garage and a rebuilt engine, the truck was a complete loss.

"No good," he said finally, emerging sweaty and oil-streaked and hauling his pants up by the belt loop with his clean little finger. 

Mulder rubbed his eyes, looking frustrated almost beyond words. "Well, thank God we took the research. That was irreplaceable."

"They'd be a weird kind of looters to be after Scully's notes," Frohike said, darting looks to either side of them. "Probably out for food." The mere presence of the wrecked truck was making him nervous. "Let's go, before they come back for second helpings."

But Mulder was searching the floor of the cabin, obviously hoping to find something worth salvaging. "Aha!" he said, a note of triumph in his voice, and drew a small bag from deep under the seat. He opened it and Frohike caught a flash of burgundy cloth as he stuffed in the few intact scraps of clothing they had found in the bed of the truck.

Mulder climbed into the van, clutching the bag. He held it up. "Scully's," he said and for the first time since he arrived, Frohike thought he actually sounded pleased.

A shout echoed along the empty street. Frohike met Mulder's eyes for a second, then hit the accelerator.

**~+~+~**

"Just find him and bring him up to the conference room," Jack said, and stalked off down the corridor.

Linda Carlyle rolled her eyes. "How the hell should I know where he is?" she muttered at Jack's rapidly retreating back. She checked her watch, which was keeping accurate time as far as she knew. Ten minutes to find Frohike before the summit Jack had called. A summit at which she planned to remind Jack that she wasn't some grunt he could order around. 

Linda had been one of the first at the compound -- handed an ugly keyring and a hand-drawn map late on a Saturday evening by Don, the best friend she had made at the lab. 

She'd driven out to the decommissioned military compound on the Sunday before the Pulse hit, feeling rather foolish for believing wild stories of global meltdown. Only the fact that two plainly terrified young men had greeted her at the gate and rushed her and Ari inside had stopped her from turning right around and going home. 

She'd threatened to kick Don's ass but good if this was a stupid practical joke and he'd promised to join her when he'd picked up his brother and nephews. She'd stopped believing he would show up now. 

Like most of those who had arrived in those first days, she was intensely curious about what was going on outside: she'd heard stories about what Melvin had been through on his journey to Louisville from DC, and apparently it had been even worse for Dana and her partner. Linda thought she could like Dana, given time to get to know her. It was comforting to have another woman around who was also a scientist.

Dana's partner though -- Mulder hadn't struck her as either friendly or helpful. Yet Melvin talked about him with fondness and even though she had known Mel less than six weeks, she'd found him to be a shrewd judge of character. Certainly she knew Frohike was a good guy.

A smile tugged at her lips. She'd known that from the first time she met him.

Linda blamed it all on the feral cats. She just couldn't resist a man who was soft on animals -- even the filthy, ragged, vicious ones that lived in the basement of the building.

By two weeks after the Pulse, life had settled into an oddly smooth rhythm. They hadn't yet locked the gates -- the rumors of the epidemic were only just beginning to reach them, and the refugees in the compound were more concerned about drawing attention to themselves than keeping people out.

Linda had brought her research materials to the compound in the old Volvo wagon after Don had tipped her off about this place, but it seemed absurd to work on invertebrate genetics when the world had fallen apart.

One afternoon, she had ducked out for a run in the grounds and when she got back there was a hobbit sawing a hole in the hallway wall. Linda blinked as her eyes adjusted to the dimmer light inside the building. Not a hobbit, but a very short, stocky man with greasy grey hair -- and he was still sawing a hole in the wall.

"What are you doing?"

"I'm trying to let the cat out." This absurd sentence was accompanied by some creative swearing and banging on the fret saw, which had apparently gotten stuck in the plaster.

Linda crouched behind the little man and peered at the wall. "I don't see any cats there."

The saw sprang loose, and he continued cutting. With a squeak and a groan, a square of plaster came loose, and he pulled it back through the hole, letting it flop down. There was a scrabbling sound, and suddenly Linda realized what was going on.

"The cats in the boiler room?" Someone had told her the feral cat in the basement had littered. One of the kittens must have wandered off and gotten stuck inside the wall.

"Yeah," he grunted, and reached through the hole, bending his arm, and scooted a little closer to the wall to get more reach. "There," he breathed, and then jerked suddenly. "Shit!" But he stayed where he was, and after a moment started pulling his hand back out.

Cradled in his gloved hand was a small quaking ball of fur. There was a trickle of blood running down his thumb and disappearing into his fingerless gloves, and Linda realized the tiny striped kitten had its teeth locked on his thumb. He didn't say anything, though, and carefully levered the kitten from its death grip before he solemnly presented it to her.

Its blood-thirst apparently quenched, or finding Linda's warm hands more to its liking than the man's gloves, the tiny kitten curled up in her palms immediately. Linda could feel a faint throbbing in her hands as the kitten purred but did not move.

She looked at the odd little man and allowed her delight to show. "You know, in some cultures, the gift of a tribble is enough to constitute a promise of marriage."

He cackled, and Linda saw a glint of evil humor in his eyes. He pulled himself to his full height, and bowed formally to her. "Melvin Frohike, at your service."

"Linda Carlyle at yours," she responded, and allowed him to put a hand under her elbow and help her to her feet. Her own hands were busy with the kitten.

"So what shall we call him, Mel?" She raised an eyebrow.

"Gollum, definitely," he announced. "After all, he did nearly -- "

"-- take your finger off," she finished. "Perfect. So did he swallow the Ring of Doom?"

Melvin slid the small saw he had been using into a khaki tool pouch on the floor next to him and carefully fitted the square of plaster back into the hole. "I sure as hell hope not -- there's no way I'm dissecting kitten poop for the next three weeks."

She couldn't help but laugh -- and she wasn't sure of the last time she had done that. As she realized that, she stopped, and looked down again at the kitten curled in her hands. She hoped it was weaned -- if not, little Gollum was going to have to adjust to evaporated milk, or make the leap to canned tuna. Was it right, though, to waste their limited resources on such an indulgence?

Her expression must have said as much, because Melvin stood and put a hand on her arm. "No -- it'll be all right. And you -- we -- need a cat."

The kitten had stayed and so had Mel. She appeared to have adopted them both.

Mel was a prize, Linda knew it already. She could tell by the way he dealt with Ari. Ari had always been the sharpest and the prettiest. There was too much to her, and it scared the boys, always had. Things weren't any different here, where the younger men boggled at her and the older men leered. Only Mel talked to her like an adult with a mind. It was odd, but it worked -- Ari bonded with him as she hadn't with any man since her father had left.

OK, so Linda liked Mel a lot. But that didn't mean she knew all the places he liked to lurk. Once she'd tried his room she was done. Damned if she was going to be ordered around. 

In the end she found him by following the angry voices to the computer room he and Byers had set up. Byers wasn't there -- he'd probably been collared by Jack earlier -- but Frohike and the two FBI agents were, and all of them sounded pissed. 

Linda hovered by the door, not wanting to walk in on an argument but unable to stop herself from eavesdropping. 

Through the small pane of glass in the door she saw Mulder sitting in a chair by one of the desks, running a dirt-smudged hand though his newly clean hair.

"I can't believe you went alone," Dana was saying. She had both hands braced against the edge of the desk, leaning forward, radiating cold fury. 

Standing awkwardly at the side, looking from one side to the other like the umpire at a tennis match, was Mel. He looked miserable. "Hey," he exclaimed. "What am I, chopped liver?" 

"He was *going* to go alone. Tell me, what the hell were you thinking?"

"I was thinking I would go and get the truck," Mulder said sharply, "like we agreed."

Dana's left hand smacked down onto the desk, loud like a crack of thunder. "Bullshit, you would've gone running off on your own, as usual, so someone had to trail after you and make sure you were okay."

"Scully, it wasn't like that..." Mel began.

Mulder rose to his full height, which was a pretty big advantage given his companions. His voice was low, cold. "I didn't *think* you'd appreciate another eight-mile walk, given how you've been making it perfectly clear you can't wait to be away from me." 

"Mulder, I'd have gone if you'd thought for one second to ask me. This is a different world now. You can't just be irresponsible and run off without a word."

When he next spoke, his tone was cutting. "We're not partners, we're not joined at the hip and you're not *obliged* to 'trail after me' any more."

She took a small involuntary step back, then immediately stood straighter and folded her arms in front of her. "So... what? You thought that now you'd offloaded me somewhere safe you'd be free to chase shadows?" she snapped. "Now that you've fulfilled your *obligation* you don't have to give a shit about anyone else any more?"

"Hey! Enough already." Mel held up his palms, in a stop gesture, his face pale beneath the customary stubble. 

Linda couldn't stand to eavesdrop when people were tearing chunks out of each other like this. It had to stop. She plastered a smile on her face and pushed the door open. Frohike nodded to her but his usual grin was missing. "Mel, Dana, Mulder," she said with forced brightness. "Jack needs us for a meeting, in the upstairs conference room now."

Dana turned her back on Mulder and nodded, looking weary, rumpled and angry. 

Mulder was staring at the papers on the desk so intently that Linda expected them to spontaneously combust. He stayed absolutely still for a moment, then stalked past Dana and out of the door. His muttered instructions as to what Jack could go do with himself were specific, if anatomically unlikely.


	5. Chapter 5

Mulder finally entered the conference room 15 minutes later and, ignoring the spare seat next to Dana, squeezed into a chair next to Linda. Jack had already run through how few cans of coffee they had and how they were going to have to reorganize the rationing -- dispiriting, everyday business that they usually dealt with after dinner when everyone was full and warm and pliant. 

It felt as if he had been waiting for Mulder to show up, just filling in time until the main event. Not everyone was here either; there were just fourteen people around the table, like an ad hoc inner council. 

Jack continued speaking, taking suggestions for new initiatives in guarding the compound and how to make more of the smaller offices inhabitable so fewer people would have to share cramped sleeping accommodation. Mulder tapped his fingers on the table, shifted restlessly. Dana glared at him once or twice but he didn't meet her eyes. His face was cold and immobile. 

Linda suddenly realized that Jack was looking in her direction, and jerked upright, as if a teacher had caught her daydreaming in class. Then she understood that it wasn't her he was watching. 

"And finally before we get onto the main business," Jack said, addressing the room but looking at Mulder and Mel, "I need a volunteer to organize a work party to siphon the gas out of all unused vehicles and put it in the main storage tank. We're going to have to use it for essential trips only. If anyone needs to go somewhere, come to my office and we'll talk about it." 

As rebukes went, it was subtle. There had been other foraging trips in the first week, before Mel had arrived, mainly for food, cigarettes and batteries for assorted personal stereos and Gameboys. They stopped when the first reports of the illness began to drift in.

Jack had decreed then that it wasn't worth risking the safety of the compound for mere creature comforts. Of course, no one was actually forbidden from venturing out -- you didn't tell a bunch of angry, scared libertarians that they didn't have freedom of movement -- but anyone who didn't like the ruling was free to quit the place for good.

She wondered if Mulder was considering it. His jaw worked from side to side a couple of times but he didn't betray any other emotion. Mel just looked more frustrated. 

Jack sat back, apparently satisfied that he had put his message across. "And now we need to work out exactly what we're dealing with here," he said, "so we can make some plans." He nodded at Mulder. "Mr. Mulder, Frohike tells us you have a lot of experience with the entity you suspect may be involved in the Pulse. And that you and Dr. Scully both have some theories. Can you share them with us?"

There was a long silence. Mulder shrugged and leaned back in his seat. Dana leaned forward and stared coolly at him from the other end of the table. Linda suppressed the urge to kick him in the ankle.

"Mr. Mulder?" Jack repeated a little louder.

Heads turned to look at Mulder. He was looking down at his hands, flat on the table. Finally he looked up and spoke. "What do you want me to say?"

"Excuse me?" This was not Jack, but Dana. She was frowning, her pale eyes trained on her partner.

Mulder looked only at Dana. "We've fought this battle for years, Scully, and we've never really gotten anywhere and we still know nothing. And what we do know, no one believes. What do we have, anyway? Your hand-scribbled notes, some scraps of blanket -- nothing!"

His face darkening, Jack leaned forward, drawing all eyes, even Mulder's, to him. Without saying a word he was the focal point of the room.

"Mr. Mulder, are you saying that you don't want to help us?"

"I'm saying, I'm not sure we can do anything about this. What do you think we're dealing with here?"

Jack pursed his lips. "The point of this meeting is to find that out. Whether this is an attack on our country or a military coup or something more sinister..."

"And he wins our star prize," Mulder exclaimed, "because it's all of those things and more."

"And it is our duty to fight back," Jack replied quickly. There were murmurs of assent from a couple of the men around the table. 

Mulder licked his bottom lip, ran long fingers over his bearded chin. He hadn't moved from his sprawled position, his big feet splayed under the table. "And how do we do that if we don't know what we're fighting? Do we even have the equipment -- because a few shotguns really isn't going to cut it here."

He sat up now and looked at all of them in turn. "Do we know what their plan is or how it works? And what if the military decide that this is a nice little place after all and they want to take it back to use as a staging post? Do we hide? 

"Suppose we do decide to take them on. What possible difference do you think a few people can make?"

"There aren't just 50 of us, Mr. Mulder, you know that. There are cells all over the country of people like us, people who found out in time and would be willing to fight."

"Cells we can't contact."

As Jack carefully put on his wire-rim spectacles and moved in his seat, Linda realized it was the first time she had ever seen him fidget or off-balance. "Well, yes, for now, but making contact will be a priority soon. If we can pool all our knowledge to help us pinpoint possible allies --" 

Mulder interrupted: "We can't communicate with them because if we try they'll track us down and kill us. Or them. Because that's happened to some cells already, hasn't it? You should know all about that."

There were low mumblings around the table. "Why should I know any more than you do?" Jack said sharply. 

"Well, you're a soldier, aren't you, Jack? And isn't the military behind what's going on?"

"Mulder." Dana's voice was tight, angry, "this is not the time --"

"Yes it is," Jack's voice was calmer than Linda would have expected. "Why don't you tell us why you think so?"

"You know," said Mulder, and he stood up slowly, favoring Jack with a dark stare, "I don't think that I will." He didn't ask anyone to excuse him as he left, just squeezed between the chairs and stalked out of the room.

**~+~+~**

Scully felt as if every pair of eyes in the room was on her, the silence growing heavier and heavier with every passing second. They had always disagreed 12 hours out of any 24 you cared to pick, but she hated it when they fought like that.

And trust Mulder to lay his paranoiac credentials on the table at the least helpful moment. 

They had been close at the start of this journey but somehow that had been stripped away, like everything else. It had been like this since the day they had found the bodies. He had tried to kiss her and she had felt nothing but cold sickness that even Mulder, who had bounced back from the worst kind of personal tragedy, was so low on resources and hope that he had to turn to that. And she was so low that she had nothing to give any more. 

Part of it was grief, but not all. She knew she'd let her temper run away with her earlier and said too much, been unfair. She'd have to speak to him later, try to talk him round. 

Jack reminded her of venerable navy men like her father, and it was hard to shake off that instinctive trust, particularly after last night's glimpse of vulnerability. But he wanted this information too badly. 

She drew in a deep breath. "We left Washington on October 23rd, heading west. We sat out the Pulse in a bunker in West Virginia. Then we kept heading west, but we ran into... into a roadblock."

Jack's interest was sparked immediately. "What kind of roadblock?"

Scully gave him a steady stare. "Soldiers. They'd shot a man. So we cut back south and east, and came up through Tennessee."

"How did it take you so long to get here? More roadblocks?"" 

"No," she replied. "We stopped for a while in a town that had been hit hard by the epidemic."

"Where?" Byers asked. 

"Heniston. We heard that there had been riots and killings in the cities but in Heniston order was maintained and the infrastructure was more or less holding up until the disease reached there."

"What was it like?" Jon asked quietly. 

Scully studied the grain of the wooden table, wondering how to even answer the question. "Not good," she said, hoping they wouldn't press her on the point. She still remembered the way the people in Heniston had reacted when she and Mulder had told them the truth. They hadn't killed the bearers of bad tidings but they'd shunned them quickly enough.

"How effective was the disease?" Jack asked. Scully's eyes widened at his choice of words; they tripped all her alarms. She stared at him hard. He didn't change his expression but he amended: "The casualty rate, I mean." 

"Very," she replied curtly. She had their attention now but it was hard to push back the memories that were crowding in on her. "While we were there, we managed ... we managed to get a lot of data, and some samples, of the disease. It was enough to draw some conclusions."

"Such as?" Jack's hands were oddly still on the surface of the table.

Scully looked up, glanced once around the table, and said clearly, "Such as that this disease is a variation of tuberculosis with an unnaturally-high mortality rate and speed of infection, that it was engineered to kill people, and that it is being intentionally distributed with the care packages from the National Guard."

A shiver went around the room. This little anarchists' collective had never believed that the people holding power now had their welfare at heart, but the confirmation of the fact still unsettled them. Linda's mouth was open; she looked stunned. A few of the men were ashen. Frohike's face was sourly angry. Byers was staring at the table, lost in thought.

"Thank you, Dr. Scully," replied Jack. His face was grim but the news certainly hadn't shocked him. "I assume you have some basis for your conclusions?"

Damned right she did. "Yes, I took samples of the blankets distributed by the National Guard -- they were coated in the infectious media." There was a small stir, and she hastened to add: "The samples are all triple-bagged and locked in a freezer in the basement. So long as no one disturbs them we should be fine. I had hoped I could analyze the contagion and look for a vaccine or an antidote."

"So... we need a lab," said Linda, haltingly. "We have to do something and labwork, well, that I *can* do." 

Jack sighed. "More equipment we don't have."

"So what do we have?" one of the men asked.

Byers' head snapped up; he looked brighter. "Computers," he said. "We have computers and the programs we need. If not, we can cook something up." 

"We do have lab space and power," Linda said, a note of hope creeping in. 

"Got a geneticist and a biochemist, too," said Byers looking at Linda and Jon. Jon nodded, with a quick smile. "One of the guys is a chemistry major with a year's pre-med."

"And one more thing," said Frohike. Byers put a warning hand on his arm and the look on his face was odd now, like shame or contrition. Frohike shook his hand off and leaned forward. 

"We still have your files, Scully. The ones you gave to us," Frohike began, his tone apologetic, like the time after they had tricked her into flying to Las Vegas when they could have just asked. "And -- and Susanne Modeski was doing some work on them. Some of that data might be useful -- " 

"My --" For a moment she wondered what he meant. She already had all the files, didn't she? All the data from Heniston had been in her pack. Then it dawned on her what he meant. 

All the information that she and Mulder had had on the conspiracy had been copied and stored with the Gunmen, just in case. Computer files, tissue samples, her own medical records... Years' worth of work that had never formed a full picture but might just make sense now. 

"Oh my God," she murmured. "And the samples? Frohike, did you bring the samples?" Frohike nodded.

Her head was spinning. She couldn't believe that Byers had trusted the information to that woman, who was hand in glove with the kind of people who had done this, and yet at the same time, his actions meant that they had the files with them. Maybe somewhere in the masses of data might be the answers that would help them fight back. 

She could feel her sluggish, weary brain begin to speed up at the prospect of having an investigation to pursue.

She rubbed her eyes so she could feel awake, tried to still her hands, which were shaking a little. "Okay," she said, feeling better than she had for days. "Okay. It's a start."


	6. Chapter 6

Once, back when he was a student, Mulder had been trapped in his poky room in college by one of England's all-day deluges. It was the week before the start of Michaelmas term and there was no one around to drag out to the pub so, in a spirit of psychological inquiry, he'd read "How to Win Friends and Influence People" from cover to cover.

He couldn't remember a chapter titled "Alienating Your Allies At Important Meetings" but he couldn't figure out why Scully and the guys, some of the most stubborn, suspicious people he knew, were being so trusting. Scully with her "yes sir, no sir" attitude to Jack, and Frohike with his insistence that they should trust some overbearing asshole who had been working for the other side for the best part of his life. 

There was nowhere to storm off to in a community this small. Nowhere warm, anyway. He walked across to the gym but there were three people in there already. He didn't want to see anyone, so he wandered back to the cafeteria.

Now that it was daylight, it looked shabby again, but it was better than freezing outside or stewing in the room he had been given.

He felt a few pangs of hunger -- they'd missed breakfast -- but all the cupboards in the kitchen were locked and there was a padlock on what looked like a walk-in freezer. Apparently you ate with everyone else or not at all.

That was smart, Mulder thought. It reinforced community bonding while maintaining strict control of food supplies. And he'd like to bet that the one who had the keys was Jack. 

He had organized the people here into work parties to cook, clean out the rest of the complex, gather wood from the surrounding area, guard the place. If you kept people busy, they wouldn't have time to dwell on their predicament. Nor would they have much time to question orders that were phrased as requests "for the good of the community".

Stupid, really, to have vented all his anger like that, but he'd subsisted on hope and his own hot air for years and they were still screwed. 

He wandered back out into dining area. Over by the books, a familiar figure slouched in one of the armchairs, bending over a couple of upturned crates. Mulder squinted to make sure this wasn't some other spindly hacker with a mess of blonde hair, bad taste in T-shirts and a love for complex comic books.

"Langly?" He stepped forward, mindful of what Frohike had told him earlier and unsure of what to expect. He knew a little about dealing with severe PTSD but that was in the normal world. He had no idea how bad Langly was. 

The man stared up at him, his moon-pale face slack, eyes glassy. He had a fistful of playing cards clutched so tightly that they were beginning to crease. There were more scattered across a piece of plywood on top of the crates, along with dice and a notebook.

Mulder moved closer and sat in a chair next to him. "Hey," he said gently.

No response.

"Hey. It's Mulder."

The man blinked slowly, then it was as if someone was slowly turning up the volume on a radio and the song playing was Langly. 

A smile tightened the skin across his cheekbones and the parentheses around his mouth became deep grooves again. "Hey. Mulder. Good to see you."

"You too, man." Mulder was surprised by the strong rush of affection he felt.

Langly caught his gaze, held it. "Guys told you I wasn't doing so good, huh?"

Delusional was the word Frohike had used. Mulder winced but decided to be honest. "Yeah. They mentioned something."

"Hah!" Langly smacked the hand of cards down on the table. "Not today. Today is a good day."

"Lucky you. The last time I had a good day, the Cubs won the World Series."

"So you and Scully made it here, huh? How you likin' it?"

"It's okay." Mulder tried not to sound too underwhelmed but Langly nodded sagely.

"Know what you mean. This hotel is terrible -- the rooms are dirty and the food tastes like shit. I may complain to the manager."

Mulder bent his head so Langly wouldn't see his face and tried to formulate a response to that which would remain unthreatening while not reinforcing the delusion.

There was a soft pushing against his upper arm. He looked up, saw a hand nudging his shoulder. One corner of Langly's mouth was twisted upwards. "Joke, man."

Mulder couldn't stop an answering smile from spreading across his face. "Son of a bitch."

Langly smirked. "Nope, that's the manager. Jesus, that Jack's a tightass."

Mulder almost smiled. Just his luck that the one person who shared his opinion needed psychiatric treatment. "Yeah, but I'm told he's such a great guy."

"Frohike told you that, right?" Mulder nodded and Langly folded his arms and lounged back in his chair. "Figures. They worked together back when we were in diapers and Frohike was doing his surveillance for Uncle Sam in eastern Europe."

"You did the background check?" Mulder asked.

"Does the Pope shit in the woods?" Langly let out a weird giggle. "Actually, I guess he doesn't any more."

The silence stretched. Langly stilled as though concentrating on a complex problem, his eyes glazing over again.

"The check?" Mulder prompted.

Langly started and smiled again. "Just like old times. You coming to us for the lowdown on the bad guys." He leaned back in his chair and there was a hard glint in his eye. "Guess I'm still useful for something, even now. "

Mulder gave him an inquiring look but Langly ignored it to start his recitation: "Jack was a high flier. One of the Army's medal men. Did a tour in Vietnam, went to Europe, fairly swift promotions but there's no really weird shit -- unless you count meeting Frohike.

"Jack is promoted again, sent to Germany until reunification. Nothing weird about that time that we could find. He goes to the Gulf, then it's back to Germany. Guess he prefers serving overseas. Never been married, hasn't had any kind of significant other that we can find. His sister died ten years ago; one nephew lives out in California."

"And after that?"

"Here's where it gets more interesting. He's at Fort Detrick in early 1994, a guard command, easy posting. Then suddenly in October '94, he gets shipped out to Idaho and three months later he quits, just a year before it's time to retire. '95 he makes contact with our guys -- and here we are."

"What do you think?"

"Official story from the army is that he just quit. Had had enough of the military life."

Mulder raised an eyebrow and Langly stared back. "Don't Scully me, man," he said. "That's the story they were telling."

"Believing that takes a pretty big leap of faith."

Langly laughed. "Says the Carl Lewis of the FBI. Unofficial sources -- and they were real keen to spread this story -- said that he forgot how 'don't ask, don't tell' works. They let him leave quietly with existing benefits intact, so long as he made no fuss." Langly gave a lopsided smile. "Out of the goodness of their hearts, of course."

"Of course. Do you believe that?"

Langly shook his head. "No. He may be gay, he may not, but he's definitely smart and careful. I don't believe he would risk his whole career for a roll in the hay. Got to be more to it." 

"So how did he get tight with the Louisville guys?"

"He knew Mike Tavener, who was the big noise in our circles in this part of the Midwest. Tavener checked him out, stood up for him.

"Jack told him that he thought the military were planning a coup, which confirmed stuff Tavener had already heard, not to mention ratchetting Tav's own paranoia right off the scale."

Mulder looked at Langly, smiling. "Pot? Kettle? Black?"

Langly flashed a brief grin. "Hey, takes one to know one. Anyway, they planned this place together 'cause Jack knew the layout from his days with the army," he added, waving his hand at the canteen. "When Jack got word it was kick-off time, the guys broke into here, and moved all the shit they had stockpiled across to here."

"If Tavener was the leader, why isn't he here?"

"Heart attack, man, six months ago." Langly caught Mulder's skeptical look. "I know, I know, but there were no suspicious circumstances that anyone could pin down. By that time, Jack was the only other person who knew all the details of this place and the plan. So Jack takes over. He's a taking-over kind of a guy. "

"And if the others didn't like it...?"

"They said bye-bye," Langly waved in the direction of the gates.

That meant three scenarios: one, that the story Jack had told Tavener was true in every part. Mulder dismissed it. Too easy.

Two, that Jack Hughes, after a lifetime of service, discovers some of the truth about the invasion, begins to ask the wrong kind of questions. The authorities get rid of him before he can find out too much. He makes secret contact with the dissident network and somehow stays alive long enough to be here. 

Or three, all of the above, only this time it's part of the cover story for a spy sent in to infiltrate the network.

If three was true, they were screwed seven ways from Tuesday because they'd walked into a trap.

He had no real evidence, just the instinctive feeling that something was wrong. Perhaps he could investigate, watch the man closely, but he Scully wouldn't listen to him unless he put concrete proof right in front of her eyes. She looked at Jack and thought "Daddy" and "safety".

He turned back to Langly. "What do you think of him?"

"Not my kind of guy," Langly replied. "Don't know how he and Frohike got so tight. He still thinks everyone should jump to his orders."

"He's probably going to order us to celebrate Christmas." Mulder pushed his voice down the register until it was more like Jack's. "You *will* enjoy yourselves. Son, get your skinny white ass to that party now!"

"We having a Christmas party, man?" Langly asked, no trace of his usual cynicism in the tone.

"Hell, I don't know," Mulder exclaimed, "it was just an example. I'm Jewish, what the hell do I care?"

Langly pulled his glasses off and polished them on his T-shirt. He looked naked and vulnerable without them. "You celebrated it at our place last year," he said.

"That was because Frohike made the turkey pizza specially. Plus, you had the beer --" And I was alone, he thought.

Langly smiled. "Oh, right," he said, hooking the spectacle arms behind his ears. "Pizza sucked ass though. Better not let Frohike cook this year; dickhead puts jalapenos on everything. If we're having a party we should just stick to chips and dips and shit like that."

Mulder decided not to touch that one. "Do you trust Jack, Langly? His story doesn't strike you as too convenient?"

"Hell if I know. Fro and some of the Louisville guys say he's cool." 

"Big chance to take. What if they're wrong, and this place is no safer than outside?" 

Langly scowled and his shoulders hunched, as if he were becoming someone else, someone smaller, younger and afraid. "Here's okay," he murmured. "I don't want to go anywhere else."

Mulder could sympathize with that. They sat in silence for a while. Finally Langly blinked, gestured at the cards. "We should play. You want to play?"

Mulder didn't want to go back to his room, couldn't walk back into the conference room even though his temper had cooled. "Not if it involves Lord Manhammer."

Langly shook his head pityingly. "Don't you know anything? That's D and D. I'm talking cards, man."

Mulder shrugged and smiled. There were worse things he could be doing. "Sure. Play what?"

"Poker? Blackjack?" Mulder nodded. "Make it interesting?" Langly asked.

"The usual? Dollar a bet?"

"Oh, a high roller! And a dollar is worth so much these days." Langly snorted. "Come on, Mulder, get real." He gathered the cards and shuffled them with the flair of a casino dealer. "Ten thousand dollars a bet or it's not even worth kicking your ass."

**~+~+~**

They started playing for landmarks because the money meant nothing. Mulder was up twenty million dollars, and now owned the Taj Mahal, the Empire State Building and the Hollywood sign -- or at least, the little pieces of paper with those words written on them. He only had two eights but he was hoping he could bluff Langly into folding and handing him Wrigley Field -- not that he wanted it particularly, but Langly seemed fond of it.

He realized she was behind him.

In the past she'd almost always announced herself with those tympanic heels. Now she was in sneakers, and at the wrong height, and he scarcely recognized either her or himself. She didn't say anything, didn't touch him, but he felt her presence like an arc light burning into the back of his neck. 

He didn't turn around. "Hey, Scully. Want me to deal you in? You too could own the Astrodome."

She ignored that. "Hello, Langly, good to see you." Her tone was warmer than he'd heard in a while. She sounded better. Langly nodded at her, smiled in return, but his long fingers were rearranging his cards nervously.

"May I speak with you, Mulder?" Her voice was soft but he could hear the edge in it. "In private."

He didn't want to argue with her, not now. "I'm kind of tied up here, beating Langly to a pulp with my superior poker skills." he said. "Can it wait?"

She stalked around the table and peered over Langly's shoulder. 

"Langly, he's full of shit, he has a pair of eights," she said, straightening up. 

"Consider your ass kicked, dude," Langly declared joyfully, snatching up a piece of paper with 'Every Taco Bell in the WHOLE World' written on it in his own loopy scrawl. 

Scully, arms folded, shot a grim look across the table. "Now, Mulder."

He placed his cards on the table and stood up. She was already walking to the far side of the cafeteria, certain he would follow. 

As they reached the far wall, she abruptly turned round. "What the hell is all this about?" she asked.

"Just a little game of poker with the guys. *A* guy anyway." 

The little groove between her eyebrows deepened. "At the meeting."

"I just didn't see the point," he said. "What are you gonna do, bureaucratize the apocalypse?"

Her head tilted back and she let out a noise of exasperation. "Can't you see it?" She looked at him intently and enthusiasm threaded through her voice for the first time in he couldn't remember how long. " I think we can finally do something."

"Such as?"

"We can salvage some proper lab equipment from Louisville. Frohike just told me that the guys brought all our files from DC -- and I mean *everything*, Mulder -- and we finally have people who can help us figure it out..."

"Weren't you *listening* to me?" He found he was yelling but he couldn't seem to stop. He drew himself up to his full height. "All I've done is drag you across country for nothing and get your mom killed miles away from her home."

She flinched at that, and he was sorry, but she had to realize that all the old rules were gone. "Mulder..." she began, but he cut her off. 

"If we represent any kind of threat at all," he said, "they will wipe us out in a second. Even if they don't, the disease could get in and then we're finished anyway."

He heard her breath catch in her throat. "That doesn't mean we can give up..." she began. Her hand curled round his bicep but he shrugged it off, moving out of her reach.

"The best we can hope for is to help these people survive the winter. Do you really want to deal with Heniston, part two?" 

She caught her breath sharply. "God, no. Of course not, but --"

"Me either. At least if we'd stayed in DC to die I would've had a comfortable couch and decent stuff to read."

"Come on, Mulder. I can't believe you think that," she said with absolute certainty. He felt his jaw muscles clench involuntarily as he bit back a retort about what she did and didn't believe. He wanted to reassure her but he wouldn't lie.

Her stare grew diamond hard and he wished he could look away. She advanced on him, arms folded again. "So that's your big solution?" she asked sarcastically. "Do nothing?"

He didn't know what to say; he was out of ideas. "Scully, do what you want. Just ... don't harbor any illusions."

She didn't move for the longest time, just stared at him as if he were a lab result that contradicted every one of her precious scientific principles.

"I don't know you any more," she muttered and stalked off in the direction of Frohike's labs.

Well, that made two of them.

**~+~+~**

//December 9//

Jack's face looked like a work of origami in the harsh morning light, all folds and lines. He was almost the age her father would have been but you tended to forget that when he was striding around the complex, full of vitality. Scully thought he looked tired now, as if he didn't need to keep up the act with just the seven of them huddled in the corner of the hall. 

She scanned around the table. There was Jon, the unofficial quartermaster while Cynthia recovered from bronchitis; a guy called Dan who looked after the building and power supplies; Byers, Frohike and Linda who were looking after the labs and computers, and Ari. 

Actually Scully wasn't sure why Ari was here, shuffling restlessly and tapping her fingernails against the table.

Jack coughed, shuffling his papers. "I'd like to thank Jon for the report from the food committee. I'm sure we can start tilling soon and planting after the winter. As it is, I'd like to get a revised plan for the work parties and get a schedule drawn up."

"I'll get onto that," said Byers. And of course he would: there was nothing his tidy mind liked more than solving a logistical problem and he had an odd gift for persuasion -- it felt rude to turn him down. 

*What are you gonna do, bureaucratize the apocalypse?*

Mulder was in her head even though she had only had a couple of glimpses of him in three days. He'd been in a corner, with Langly and a couple of the other guys when she walked into the hall last night, but her attention had been distracted momentarily when Jack asked her a question. When she turned back to try to catch his eye, both he and Langly were gone. 

She hadn't looked for him after their argument; he hadn't sought her out. Frohike said he was all right, whenever she asked. It was the longest she'd gone without speaking to him in years but she didn't want to see Mulder if he was despairing. It was selfish, but her own sense of hope was too fragile.

"... Dr. Scully?" She realized she'd missed Jack's entire question. She blinked a couple of times and tried to gather her scattered thoughts. "The trip to Louisville," she said and saw by Linda's quick nod that she'd guessed right. "I've drawn up a list of the medical supplies we should try to get. When I get to the labs in Louisville I can..."

Jack interrupted, shaking his head. "You're needed here."

"But I'm the one who knows what we're looking for," Scully said, surprised by his firmness. "And none of the sick are seriously ill."

"Dr. Scully, you're too valuable to risk."

Scully kept her face expressionless; she was ashamed of her own momentary relief at not having to face the chaos outside again. The cold was biting now and food would be running out. 

"I'll be driving but I think that at least two other people should make the trip. There's a lot to carry, a lot to guard. And we'll be armed." Jack paused and looked up at them. There was a silence.

Frohike shrugged. "Aw, fuck it," he muttered. "I'm in. I may need to scavenge parts anyhow."

A chair scraped the floor loudly as Ari leaned forward. "Let me go," she said, and her eagerness was palpable.

Linda's head snapped round. "Aracelis!"

"Mom, I'm perfect. I've been around the labs enough to have an idea of what you need." Ari caught Jack's eyes and held his gaze. "I could do this."

Frohike put a gloved hand on her arm. "No one thinks you couldn't. That's not the issue."

She shook it off. "Then what is the issue?"

"The issue is you're not going," Linda declared. "You've got no training for this kind of thing."

Ari snorted. "I have no training for carrying heavy boxes and reading directions? After the number of times we've moved since dad left? Come on, mom." Linda looked guilty and Ari used the respite to turn her attention to Jack. "I know Louisville, I can use a gun and I can handle myself. I won't let you down." 

Linda looked away, pinch-faced and unhappy, and Frohike took over. "I've been out there, Ari, and it ain't pleasant. No sights worth seeing."

"You think I don't know that? I want to see." Ari's voice softened. "I need to see, if only so I can believe it."

Linda stared at her daughter hard. There was a long moment of silence as Linda shook her head slowly. "You only came to the meeting for this, didn't you?" Ari met her fierce gaze calmly. 

"I'm not happy about it," Linda said finally. 

Ari's face broke into a wide smile that made her look about thirteen -- that phrase was obviously code for "I'm giving in." "You don't need to worry. I'll follow orders," she said, failing to tamp down the excitement in her voice.

Scully recognized the expression on Linda's face. She'd seen it often enough on her own mother's face back when she decided to join the Bureau. Byers coughed to break the awkward silence. "I'll... uh, I'll volunteer to come if someone else is needed."

Jack shook his head and Byers didn't even bother to disguise his relief. 

"I already have someone in mind," he said.


	7. Chapter 7

//December 10//

Mulder had volunteered for guard duty two days running because he preferred chilly solitude to rattling around inside the complex with people who seemed to think he had all the answers. It was difficult to adjust to the idea that he was a role model to some of these guys, thanks to the Lone Gunmen, and he didn't want their questions.

The only person he saw with any regularity was Langly, who was resisting all of Byers' and Frohike's best efforts to drag him into the lab. Langly was uncomfortable in their company now. Sometimes no one could reach him, at other times he seemed to welcome talking to other people. To the seven children in the community, he was a source of terrible jokes and great card tricks -- and almost as popular as Gollum the kitten. 

Mulder had joined his poker school and sometimes watched the adventures of the D and D group. Langly never seemed more his old self than when he was being someone else. Some hero who got to slay the dragons. Mulder envied the escape.

It was 4 pm and now that his eight hours of staring into the distance was done, Mulder had had every intention of going back to his own room, but he found himself on his way up to the little-used second floor -- the route up to the infirmary, as if his feet had made the decision all by themselves. 

The last time he'd asked Frohike how Scully was, the little man had snapped, "Stop being an ass and ask her your freakin' self." 

He supposed he should go talk to her but whenever he saw her, she seemed to be with Jack Hughes. Ever the good little soldier, he thought sourly, then told himself he was being unfair. His office was close to the infirmary, maybe that was why Jack often spoke to her.

All he really wanted to know for the moment was that she was doing better; he didn't want to speak to her because nothing he said could help. It was easier when you could confine what you said to trash talk and poker.

His steps slowed. A sound from outside caught his attention and he lifted the blackout curtain to peer out of the window. It was the low roar of a powerful but small engine. A moment later, he saw a compact figure in shabby leathers power a sleek black motorbike towards the gates. "Son of a bitch," murmured Mulder, wondering if it was paranoid to think that Jack had waited until his stint on guard duty was over before heading off.

He watched Jack until he was a dot on the horizon. A plan was formulating in the back of his brain. A tight smile spread across his face as he headed back down towards his room. 

Ten minutes later he was outside Jack's office. Sure enough the door was locked but it was a minute's work with his lockpicks to work it open. No one came past. He edged inside and pushed the door shut again. He pulled the thin maglite out of his pocket and sent a wide beam of light sweeping around the room. 

There was a wide oak desk, kept with the kind of neatness that was utterly foreign to Mulder, and a heavy chair by the door -- no doubt where Jack made miscreants sit, like a principal who wanted you to stew over your crimes for a while before handing out the punishment. Mulder lifted it to the door and slid it under the door handle. No point locking himself in, but that should keep anyone else out.

The office was large but it was divided in two by a couple of blankets strung up like curtains. Jack was never off-duty. He slept and worked in the same space and there wasn't a shred of personality in the place even though he'd been there longer than anyone. 

Mulder lifted the corner of one blanket and found a narrow cot, neatly made up. The flashlight beam was reflected in neatly polished black shoes, which were lined up next to a pair of boots and some battered sneakers. Next to the bed was a filing cabinet. He pulled open a drawer and found khakis, T-shirts neatly folded, socks balled up and piled next to them along one side. The next drawer held pants, the bottom one a spare towel, razors, a washbag and a small photo album. 

Mulder flipped though it. There were faded black and white pictures of a man and woman, poor but well turned out, and a small girl and a stocky, grinning boy. Further back the same woman grown up and in color, this time with Jack's arm slung around her shoulder in a very casual, un-Jack-like manner. She had a boy of her own by her side. Jack's sister.

He put the album back in the same place, closed the drawer and turned away. A vast map pinned to the wall marked the army facilities in this state and the surrounding ones. Some were outlined in red. There were other markings in blue, routes between them planned in dotted lines. One on the far corner of the map was the anarchists' lair where he and Scully had waited out the pulse. There was a cross through it and several of the others now, including the hideout in the Shenandoah Valley. 

These must be all the cells of dissenters he had been talking about. But there were other markings on the map too, in green, including one in Louisville -- and Mulder had to wonder what they were. Command outposts, perhaps? 

He moved behind the desk. The drawer was unlocked so he pulled it out of the casing and set it on the bare desk. The top layer was a thick sheaf of paper with scribbled notes on it that probably made sense to their owner. There were typewritten pages, floorplans, diagrams. Each section was neatly clipped together. As far as Mulder could work out, it was inventory: calculations to the nearest can of supplies matched to the number of people, projections of how five more and ten more people would alter the length of time that rations and fuel could last. He studied it.

Pages and pages of calculations; life in the complex in detail, micromanaged to ten decimal places. 

Beneath, there was a large calculator, rulers, pens, and a brick of blank paper. Mulder lifted it with one finger and then froze as a stapler clattered in the bottom of the drawer. He held still for a moment but there was still no answering noise. Carefully now, he lifted out the paper to discover a buff-colored envelope wedged at the bottom of the drawer. 

Mulder pushed a finger under the flap and shook the contents out. More papers, this time, familiar ones: laserprinted versions of the flyers he had seen in Heniston. He recognized one or two of the faces as people he saw around the breakfast table in the morning. Some were creased, as though they had been folded inside a pocket. Almost all were annotated in Jack's scrawl with other names, dates. He read through them with growing alarm.

These must be from his contact in Louisville. It confirmed that the contact was Army and in the loop so far as the authorities were concerned. But was he Jack's informer or was Jack his?

Mulder swallowed hard. Here was a sheet with mugshots of the Gunmen, in the margins more notes. His own name was in there, but he could only understand about half of the shorthand. He was pretty sure no one in the compound had been told that they were on some kind of wanted list. Why?

Mulder flicked through more of the papers. There was the photograph of him and Scully he had seen in Heniston. Underneath it was another, newer piece of paper, dated just a week ago, with a better surveillance picture of his face and a crisp, clear headshot of Scully that he had never seen. 

She looked three or four years younger than she was now, and he would bet anything that it was a family photo because she was dressed in jeans and a sweatshirt and smiling broadly. But it wasn't the pictures that sent his heart thumping hard, as if it were trying to escape the cage of his ribs, it was what was typed underneath. "Confirmed sighting, Heniston, Tennessee -- November." There was also a description of Scully's mother and a warning to look out for three people traveling together. 

Someone in Heniston had told the authorities that they had been there.

He sank into Jack's chair and read through the instructions for his own capture while willing himself to stay calm. Jack hadn't handed anyone over yet, so far as he knew, but this circular made it clear that he and Scully were top priority. 

This meant that they had a way better idea of what parts of the country he and Scully might be in. He checked his watch. Almost six o'clock. Jack could be back any minute. Time to leave. He shoved the papers back into the envelope and pushed it to the bottom of the drawer again, put everything else back in order and tried to work out his next move.

He could ask her to go on the run again, but where else could they go? And the way things were between them, would she even come with him?

**~+~+~**

//December 11//

Langly should've been here, Frohike thought. That punkass should've been all over it; electronic engineering was his field. Frohike could hack and splice and jury-rig well enough, but he had always thought of himself as more the ideas man of the three. This wasn't his forte.

Unfortunately, Langly had an amazing facility for disappearing when he was needed. And anyway, last time he and Byers had tried to persuade Langly to come and work on the system they were setting up, he had flipped out. 

Didn't like being stuck behind the machines, he guessed. So now it was just Frohike and his soldering iron versus technology, trying to get the last of the computers in the mood for talking to each other again.

If he could do it, Linda could really set to work running the simulations.

It was a labor of love.

The thought streaked out before he could stop it. He told himself he was an old fool.

The trouble was that that skinny little asshole had done something to the drives before they left home, one of those goddamned "improvements" that only ever made sense to Langly, and now Frohike was left with a sprawl of wires like a nest of vipers in the back. Frohike felt the customary brief longing to smack the shit out of Langly -- not as if that had ever helped.

He heard the door open. "Having trouble, Melvin?" A sweet, low voice floated across the room and he groaned inwardly. Just what he needed: the lovely Linda watching this royal pigfuck.

He ducked from behind the desk and shot her what he hoped was a devastatingly winning smile.

"A little local difficulty. Nothing I can't handle."

Ari shot him the eyebrow -- she'd already picked that up off of Scully -- and walked over to squint into the back of the machine. She whistled. "Holy shit, that's a mess."

"Aracelis!" Linda snapped, but without much venom. 

"You got a tech support's gift for stating the pointless and obvious, Ari. You gonna ask me if I've read the manual now?" Frohike muttered to her burgundy Doc Marten boots as he laid beside the back of the drive. "Hand me the screwdriver, will you please."

Ari reached over the desk and her loose crop top rode up her stomach, so he could see all the way up to her chest. She was dressed light for an Indiana winter. Real light.

Frohike squeezed his eyes shut, and quashed the urge to march her back to her room like he was her old man and demand that she put on a big sweater. At the very least.

Concentrate on the circuitry, he told himself. A screwdriver dropped into view and Ari crouched beside him. She was wearing a battered old leather jacket and the offending T-shirt bore a cartoon chess piece wearing a bandanna and pointing a gun, and below, the words "Hardcore pawn."

He shook his head. She was as bad as Langly.

He made one last connection. "Okay," he breathed and flicked the switch.

Not a beep, not a whirr.

"God*damned* fucked up piece of shi..." He remembered Linda was in the room and cut the rant off in its prime. "Sorry," he murmured.

"You're not my daughter, Mel, you can say what the hell you like." She grinned at him and carried on flipping through the computer disks.

When he looked back at the machinery, Ari's hand was halfway inside it.

He batted at her wrist, afraid she'd snag some other wire. "Don't mess around in there, Ari, it took three hours to get this far."

But Ari gave something a sharp twist and suddenly, there was a chime and green lights. She gave him a cocky smile. "Saw a loose connection. My eyesight's sharper."

Well, I'll be goddamned. he thought. Melvin Frohike, welcome to true humiliation. "Thanks Ari, you just made a happy man very old."

Linda walked over to them. "I taught her many things," she said, "but apparently tact was not one of them. Thank you, Mel." She gave him a hand up and planted a kiss on his lips.

"Maybe we should discuss what you can do to make it up to me later," he mumbled, then squeezed his eyes shut at what a terrible line that was.

"Maybe we should." Linda said. Ari rolled her eyes and her mom snorted back a laugh.

Langly had always bet the world would end before Melvin Frohike ever got laid again. Maybe the thought of collecting on it would bring him out of himself.

His brain was beginning to improvise pleasantly on these themes when he heard the door open and it was as if the room temperature dropped another ten degrees. "Hello, Mulder," Linda said coolly.

Frohike rose from behind the desk to see Mulder give Ari and Linda a nod. Mulder had made himself very scarce these past few days. "Frohike, have you seen Scully?"

"Tried the infirmary, man? She's practically living in there." He knew Scully had been there most nights since she arrived. She and Linda were working all hours to put the research notes in some kind of order, while Alan looked after the day to day running of the infirmary -- she even got Jon to bring her dinner up there when he was visiting his boy.

"First place I went," Mulder said. "She hasn't been there since dawn, according to the guy who's there now."

"Then she's probably with Jack," Frohike said. "He wanted to find out more about the epidemic."

Mulder looked like someone had just pissed in his last beer. "Oh great. *Jack*," he muttered.

Frohike frowned. "Yeah, she's with Jack. Your point?" Linda and Ari pretended to be very, very busy at the newly-mended computers. He was so sick of this. He could feel his temper rising like mercury on a July morning, but tried to concentrate on wiring up the last of the hardware.

Mulder wasn't going to give up. He gripped the back of the chair, knuckles bone white. "Do you have any idea of what his plans are? You're *supposed* to be paranoid."

Then from behind them all: "Mr. Mulder." Jack was at the door, looking like thunder.

Frohike had seen Mulder do this before: this odd closing off, where his face would go blank and his eyes narrow, as if he'd been honing his anger to a point and now he was ready to go hunting for a target.

"I think you and I need to settle our differences, Mr. Mulder," Jack said in a low, cold voice.

"What do you propose, pistols at dawn? Fifteen rounds in the ring and the loser cleans the latrines with a toothbrush?" Mulder asked.

"Mr. Mulder. I saw you in operation before all this started," Jack said, stepping to within five, then three feet of Mulder. Mulder stood a little straighter, folding his arms, emphasizing the four-inch height difference. Jack didn't even acknowledge his glare.

"The general opinion then was that you're incapable of following orders and if I'd been your boss I would have had your badge. Here, I'm just a concerned member of this community --"

"What sanctimonious bullshit," Mulder interrupted.

"-- but I will not tolerate that kind of indiscipline endangering lives here."

Frohike suddenly regretted every tall tale he'd told Jack about Mulder's exploits.

He held up his hands and stepped towards the two men. "Hey, come on, chill ou..."

Jack ignored him. "So I propose we settle this once and for all. You will come on our trip to Louisville since you're so very curious about it. We have a lot of equipment to move; at least you'll be useful there."

Frohike could almost hear the words "shove it" passing through Mulder's brain, so obvious was his expression. He had never reacted well to being ordered to do something, but he couldn't usually pass up the chance to investigate either.

Mulder nodded, once. Jack walked away looking thunderous. The door slammed behind him. Mulder's jaw worked from side to side, as if he were suppressing the urge to yell. Finally, he just shook his head. "If you see Scully, Frohike, tell her it would be nice if she showed her face occasionally," he muttered and followed Jack out of the door.

"God, I think I'm breathing pure testosterone here," muttered Ari.

Frohike exchanged glances with Linda. He wasn't sure what had just gone down, but he was pretty sure it was bad.


	8. Chapter 8

//December 12//

The day had gone fairly smoothly -- at least no one had taken a swing at anyone, which was about the best Frohike had hoped for. He'd been working at the lab, trying to figure out what else might be needed in the Louisville trip.

It was likely to be twice as dangerous as their initial journey from D.C., because the people out there would be twice as desperate and hungry as they had been in the first shell-shocked weeks after the Pulse. 

After dinner -- Scully didn't appear but Mulder was there, sitting in the corner with Langly, away from everyone else -- Frohike quit polite company, and retired to his room.

Even a studly adventurous hacker in a post-apocalyptic world needs clean underwear, he thought, as he folded his laundry and stared at the empty walls.

It was less a sanctum than a former bureaucrat's office. The walls were an institutional gray-green he remembered from a few bad years in Berlin. He had no bed, just a mat and some blankets. He told himself it was good for his back. 

His clothes were piled on the desk. He still had one of the disassembled PCUs taking up floor space. A bookshelf contained only half a dozen O'Reilly manuals and a copy of "Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance." 

Langly had originally been sharing the room but he'd left after the first couple of nights to sleep in the dining hall. Frohike supposed he should be insulted but mostly he was grateful.

The room was lit by a single candle. They were gradually turning off all energy drains, conserving more and more of the fuel for heating. It was as if they were being weaned off the conveniences of the modern world, bit by bit.

He was paying way more attention to separating the jeans from the t-shirts than he did back when laundry was just an annoyance, a time killer that dragged him away from hacks, kicking ass on Diablo, and laying out the new issue of the Magic Bullet. But even thirty years on, he still didn't stand with his back to the door. When Linda poked her head around, even the light of one candle was enough to reveal the worry in her eyes.

"Hey," she said. "Mind if I come in?"

"Mi office es su office," he replied, hurriedly stacking the clothes atop one another. He didn't want Linda to see his ancient Spiderman boxers before he'd had time to prepare her.

She stood awkwardly next to him, looking around. She was wearing a big wool sweater that went down to her thighs. It was one of those Latin American sweaters, in green and purple stripes. On anyone else he was sure it would look goofy; on Linda it was kind of cute.

"I like what you've done with the place." But her voice was muted, and she wasn't looking at him.

"Yeah, right. At least it's better than -- actually I can't think of anything it's better than," he said.

It got a hint of a laugh but not enough. Linda was not usually this low-energy. He knew why, of course. 

He took her arm, the wool fuzzy and soft under his fingers. "Do you want to sit down? I have a chair, a desk, and the floor."

She took the desk, and hitched herself up so she could sit cross-legged on it, her back leaning against the rattling windows. All he could see was the reflection of the candle, and Linda's dark eyes shimmering in the half-light.

He wondered why she even liked him: Melvin Frohike, hacker extraordinaire, an aging short guy with funny dress sense and no family to speak of, save the guys.

He knew why he liked her. No one would call her a babe -- she wasn't hot the way Scully always had been. He couldn't imagine her in a power suit and heels. But she was generous with her smiles, even here at the end of the world, and she laughed at his jokes.

She wasn't smiling now. He knew Ari was a sharp kid, old enough to vote, drive, or die for her country, but she was still Linda's child.

He pulled the chair around and sat down facing Linda. "We'll only be gone a few hours. And Jack will be with us."

That did get a smile out of her. "When did you become a mind-reader, Mel?"

" 'Bout the same time I became a sexual god," he said, just to keep the smile on her face. "Imagine the possibilities of a mind-reading lover ... "

"Then you're out of luck. I can't let you discover my secret fetish for men in lederhosen."

"Really? One more thing for the shopping list. What kind of place sells lederhosen, anyway?"

She snickered at that, then fell quiet. The silence that settled in the room was more relaxed now. Linda tilted her head back against the window and sighed, looking at him through hooded eyes. He kept his eyes on hers for a long moment and then had to look away, dazzled.

A gust of wind shuddered the old glass panes, and the candle on the desk flickered. Linda's voice was almost lost in the quiet as she said his name. When he looked at her, she was leaning precariously forward, one hand stretched out to him.

His hands were bare for once, and he was thankful for it. She had broad, useful hands; her nails were short but he could feel hangnails rough against the skin of his palm.

He was looking at Linda, at her solemn face, and yet the world had evaporated; the whole of existence was concentrated in the scratched and weary hand cradled in his own.

It was too much, but he couldn't stop it now. He wanted to touch her, to kiss her. Linda inhaled but before she had a chance to speak he blurted out: "I'll watch out for her."

A smile skittered across her face, and he'd never seen that one before, and he was certain now that he wanted to see them all. She opened her mouth, began to say something, stopped, and sighed.

"Don't tell her I asked you, Mel, okay?"

Before he could help myself, he had brought her hand to his lips and pressed a kiss to her palm. "I'm yours to command, my lady."

"Thank you," she said, and allowed him to help her down from the desk. They stand there for a moment, hands clasped by the light of a guttering candle. Finally he turned toward the door.

"Is there anything else you want me to look for while we're there?"

"Like a steak?" she asked with a laugh. "No. Just bring yourselves safe home." And she slipped away with one last smile.

**~+~+~**

The rapping at the door roused Scully from the first sleep she'd had in about 24 hours. She was off until 6 am but this would be Alan, the first-year medical student who had become her head nurse, come to call her back to the infirmary like he had the night before.

People living in close proximity, a lack of fresh food in the diet, inexperienced cooks, unusually cold weather... it was no wonder that people were dropping with minor, if nasty, ailments and injuries. And of course, everything had to be checked out as quickly as possible just in case it wasn't so minor after all

She groaned and peeled her face away from the polyester mix pillow. It was pitch black. She felt for the Zippo and lit the candle, welcoming its pale light. She tiptoed to her running shoes, the cold floor sending an ache up through the arch of her foot, then flicked the lock open. "S'open, Alan," she called, turning to grab her jacket. "Is it Cynthia aga..."

"Hey."

She whirled to see Mulder lounging against the door jamb, arms folded and a bag hanging off his shoulder, wearing a half-amused leer, the one that felt halfway between tease and honest appraisal.

"Nice PJs, Scully."

The Emory T-shirt she had borrowed from Linda was too big and hung off one shoulder and the left leg of the navy sweatpants had ridden up to her knee. She could feel her hair standing up on one side of her head and her mouth tasted as if hamsters had been nesting somewhere around her tonsils. Delightful.

She tried to cover it with a joke. "These old things?" She pulled the T-shirt straight and combed her hair flat with her fingers as she held the door open for him. In the days since she'd last seen him properly, he had gotten some sleep and some food. He looked better.

Nostalgia carved her wide open for a second; she felt a painful, overwhelming desire to step back to a time before whatever they'd had between them had broken.

"What can I do for you?" she asked then wished she didn't sound so formal.

He sidled in, his eyes roaming over the room. He looked at the photographs tacked to the wall, the borrowed clothes hung over the lone chair in the room, the untidy pile of research notes near the mattress on the floor. He'd always done that in her apartment as well; like she was a case and he was looking for the vital clue that would crack her open.

She sat down at the head of the makeshift bed, shuffling her cold feet under the rucked up covers. She gestured for him to sit at the other end and waited for him to get to the point.

He sat heavily, his knee joints creaking in protest. "So... Long time no see, Scully," he said, inspecting the floor.

And whose fault was that? He knew where she spent most of her time, knew she couldn't leave often or for long. 

"I guess that's down to me," he said. She gave him a sharp look. Mulder's smile was tiny beneath his straggly beard. "We agree on something at last."

The candle flickered in the drafty room, twisting the shadows and for a moment their gazes caught and held. She was the first to look away.

"God, you look tired," he whispered.

She sighed and leaned back against the wall. "Thank you, Mulder; you must let me have the address of your charm school."

He held his hands up, as if surrendering. "I didn't mean it like that."

"I know." She ran her fingers through her hair and yawned. "It's okay. Research and the infirmary are sucking up every minute of the day."

He fell silent again. Maddening. She wanted to push him out of the door, pull the covers up over her head and sleep for a week. She wanted to shake him until his teeth rattled, so he'd spit out what he came for. She wanted him to talk to her like a normal human being. She wanted her best friend back.

After a moment he began: "You lock your door?"

"I don't like unexpected visitors."

He gave her a twisted smile, grimly amused. "Should I leave?"

"Not you, Mulder," she said. "Why don't you sit down."

She burrowed her feet a little deeper under the blanket and pulled the quilt around her shoulders to stave off the cold. "I guess it's a habit I can't break. We all live in such close proximity that I just want one place where I can lock the world away and be alone."

He nodded solemnly. "I've been spending a lot of time alone too." His face was painted in shadow and his eyes were black, unreadable in the warm candlelight. "Thinking about stuff."

She nodded. "Come to any conclusions?"

"I thought I could sit back, let things happen for a while but ... I need to *do* something or I'm gonna go insane."

She laughed, surprising herself as well as him. "I know that feeling. You haven't been put on the chores schedule yet? Cooking? Laundry?" 

He shook his head. "Guard duty mostly. I don't really think I am up to cooking anything."

"You could make your culinary specialty. I'm sure that all this community needs is a good dose of grilled cheese."

"Hah. You might mock..."

She nodded with fake solemnity. "Yes. I believe I might."

"Byers is organizing us into work parties. You don't see it because you've got a job..."

"Two actually."

"...but we useless mouths are going to have to work for our dinner. I'm afraid that they may even put me on gardening detail soon."

Scully raised an eyebrow. "Gardening?"

"Self-sustaining community is the buzzword in the rec room. We'll be growing vegetables." He sighed. "Do I look like a gardener? I can't even keep houseplants. If herbicide was a crime I'd be locked up for life."

"You kept fish."

"I think 'kept' is the wrong word. I was always buying lookalikes so you wouldn't notice how bad I was at it."

"And I never did. Some investigator, huh?"

He smiled wistfully, then ran a hand down to his bearded chin, eyes glittering in the dusk of the room. "I came..." He halted, then regrouped. "I came because I want... I *need* to talk to you about something. And... well, there's something I should have given you before now." He handed her the bag.

She recognized it straight away. Hers. Working her fingers underneath the flap she pulled out the burgundy dress, the only frivolous thing she had packed before the collapse. She'd left the bag hidden in the truck because the research was so much more important and they couldn't carry it all. Yet when she thought it had been taken with everything else, it had upset her more than she could say.

She swallowed until the tightness in her throat dissipated. She was soothed by the softness of the fabric under her roughened fingers.

"It was the only thing in the truck they didn't steal or destroy," he murmured. "You hid it so well even I almost missed it -- and I knew it was there."

She felt under the rest of the clothing and there it was, the box containing the last gift Melissa had given her: a pair of earrings. They were useless in the life she had now, yet she'd mourned their loss. She clutched it for a second to feel the sharp edges of the plastic box in her hand, to believe it was really there. "Thank you," she said.

He lifted one shoulder; half a shrug. "Scully, come to Louisville with me tomorrow." His face was eager, boyish, just like it always had been when he was hoping she'd ride shotgun on one of his wild goose chases. Returning her bag had been nothing more than a bribe. 

She sighed and began packing the dress away again. "You know I can't leave here."

"I need your help."

"For what? It's a supply run. Ari knows what we need. One more person will just take up space in the truck."

"I'm going to tail Jack," he said. "See where he goes, what he's hiding."

"Mulder..." 

"I know. I know you think I'm wrong but hear me out. I have good instincts, yes?"

It was true, he did, but there had been plenty of times where his "instincts" failed when it came to knowing who to trust.

He must have read the expression on her face. "I know I'm not infallible," he said, "but Scully, when it comes to this kind of thing, I'm usually right, and I'm telling you, Jack Hughes is not telling us the truth."

He paused, cocked his head and studied her, and it was so familiar -- she knew he was weighing up whether to tell her something she wouldn't like. "I got into Jack's office, you know," he said.

She felt as if she should be shocked at the breach of privacy but she couldn't summon up the outrage. Instead she felt sick that she might be trusting Jack when he was just another bad guy. "You broke in?" 

"I may have picked the lock," Mulder said casually, as if he was saying he was thirsty or that it might rain today. 

"And did you find anything?"

He looked at her intently. "Didn't have much time to search, but he had the same surveillance photos as in Heniston. As well as new ones."

"Of us?" He nodded. She remembered the cold-water shock of realizing that the authorities had put out the equivalent of 'wanted' posters for them, lists of their supposed crimes.

"They know we were in Heniston, Scully." She swore under her breath. "They had a description of us, and uh," he halted, swallowed. "Your mom. They had a description of your mom down to the clothes she was wearing. They were looking for three people in a truck."

It hurt more than she expected, so she packed the feelings away and moved on. Concentrate on what you can change, on what you don't know, she told herself. "How about the guys?"

He looked up, surprised that she would move on so swiftly. "Yeah. Other people too. Information on all of us. "

"Maybe his friend in Louisville gave them to him," Scully said, rubbing the heel of her hand into her eye and trying to calculate whether Jack knowing their value as fugitives meant anything.

"Jack is keeping notes. When we all arrived, what we had with us. What we told him. You don't think it's suspicious?"

"I think they really want to find us and they're giving our pictures to anyone who might help." She frowned. "I know Jack is trying to work out patterns of enemy movement so maybe our stories are helping with that. And Frohike knows Jack. Trusts him."

"Maybe he doesn't know Jack as well as he thinks. People change. They make compromises. They get corrupted. He was career military, he worked for the government."

"Jesus, Mulder, so you keep saying," she snapped. "But so did we. And my father was military and so were my brothers, and they were all honorable men. Those guys distributing the blankets, I'm sure most of them have no idea what's going on; they probably think they're helping."

His hand thumped down on the bed but without much power behind it. "Scully, why would you of all people be so gullible about this?"

She willed her voice to remain calm; she didn't have the energy for one of their nasty fights, the ones where they unpicked each other's seams.

"Mulder, I'm not *against* you," she said, meeting his eyes and hoping he would understand. "I never have been. I just don't think you're right." He looked forlorn and without thinking she reached out to him, putting a hand on his hunched shoulder. His expression was wintry.

"I'm tired, Mulder. Tired of suspecting everyone and everything. Maybe I want to believe that there's this one safe place."

He looked at her and she thought she saw understanding in his eyes for a second. "Scully, please," he said in a quiet tone. "I need your help."

She removed her hand and sat back in irritation. "I can't go."

"Why?"

"It's like you said, Mulder, we're not joined at the hip." Her tone was not unkind but she could see that the remark had hit home. "I have patients to look after."

"Not partners any more, hey?" 

She sighed. That wasn't what she meant. 

"So you won't go?"

"Mulder, you don't need me. Frohike and Ari will watch your back. Here, they do need me."

"And it's good to be needed, right?" 

"I'm the only doctor they have."

He stood up, looking up at the wall where she'd tacked up a couple of photos of her family. "Fine," he said in that dead tone she'd come to hate. "I understand." He walked to the door.

Scully blew out the candle in one angry, wax-spattering burst and flopped back onto the mattress in frustration. He was outlined in the dim light of the corridor. The door began to swing shut. "Be careful," she whispered.

There was a pause, as if he was about to say something but thought better of it. The door snicked shut.


	9. Chapter 9

//December 13//

The downtown office blocks of Louisville still cut the horizon into geometric blocks. If you looked up it was as though nothing had changed. If you were at ground level, the smashed up houses and storefronts told you that everything had.

The trip had already taken way longer than it should have. They had left just after breakfast, in the compound's only large truck, a sturdy open-backed van that had once been used by a furniture dealership. 

Jack drove, his straight back an advertisement for good posture and his expression frosty at their lack of progress. He kept glaring at his watch for daring to tell him the right time.

Ari and Frohike rode shotgun. Frohike was cracking wise, trying to make Ari laugh, and mostly it worked. 

Mulder lounged in the back on a folded up tarp, staring at the retreating pavement, the wide, vacant sky. At first they made good progress, steering round fallen trees, the odd abandoned car and on one occasion a small herd of cows wandering across the road. 

But the obstacles grew ever more frequent as they neared the city. Tangles of burned out cars, a sprawl of barbed wire, a pack of dogs pulling the flesh from a shape that was sickeningly recognizable. 

They were too conspicuous for Mulder's liking, but they had gambled on minimizing risk and gas use by making one big trip rather than a lot of little ones. At least they were also heading for a part of the town where few people lived. This was a road zoned for business not homes, lines of car dealerships giving way to small industrial units and mechanics' garages, most of them locked up as they had been when the Pulse hit. Here and there windows had been broken. They went past more than one medical clinic on their way, and each one was burned out or smashed up, presumably by people who were searching for drugs, just as they were. Mulder began to fear the worst. 

They were getting further and further behind their schedule as they were forced to weave through the mess and keep searching. Jack was keeping the truck in low gear as they maneuvered, trying not to attract attention with the engine noise. 

EmGen was the fourth medical research company on the list Linda had supplied, and one of the less promising prospects at first glance -- it was smaller than most of the others, and not so well stocked. It had one big advantage: its entrance was out of sight. 

The building itself was unimpressive, a concrete block built atop a small underground loading bay and parking lot -- probably why it had been mostly left alone -- but despite that it had been designed to withstand all but the most determined thieves. The windows were shuttered, rather than merely barred and the heavy fire door had withstood repeated blows. At the entrance, an armed security guard had controlled video cameras and locked, electronically-operated steel and reinforced glass doors. They were carefully programmed to open when someone had the right swipe card and code. Its designers had never banked on the back-up generator failing at the same time as the main power. 

As they pulled the truck off the road and down the in-ramp, they could see that there had been a determined effort to smash the glass doors, which were spider-web cracked, their metal frames dented. It didn't look as though they had yielded. Jack turned the engine off and smiled grimly for the first time that morning. 

The place was empty save for a sleek black BMW. The whole place was dark and dank now that its orange lights had been put out for good, and it seemed to be a law of nature that all underground parking garages must reek of urine.

Ari jumped from the truck and swung the cab door back. Mulder scrambled over the tailgate and ran to reach her. "Stop!" he hissed. She froze. "Slam it and it'll echo round here until it sounds loud as a gunshot."

Ari's eyes widened and she nodded, pushing the door to, then giving it a hard shove until the lock clicked. She mouthed an apology.

"Good call," Jack muttered to Mulder, checking his watch for the fiftieth time that morning. They were all edgy and awkward. The engine clicked as it cooled down. 

It was the quiet that got to you. It was far more than a Sunday silence in the business district of town. Frohike took his bag of tricks and went to work on the door. A car battery, leads and a small pry-bar were by his side. He slid a thin sheet of metal between the two doors, and thrust a narrow pick into the lock.

"The drill, one last time," said Jack, demanding Mulder's attention. "We have to work fast. Medical supplies first, then lab supplies. That's your job, Ari; you and Mulder find those. You leave them in the corridor, I carry them the last 20 yards into the truck, and act as second lookout. Mel, you're on full-time guard duty."

Frohike snorted as he clamped the leads onto the metal. "Ain't I always?" Jack shot him a look and he waved a hand in surrender. "I'm not complaining, I won't be the jackass with the bad back."

"It's important. Anyone round here won't take it kindly if they think we're looting on their patch." 

There was a loud clicking sound. Frohike quickly jammed the metal bar into the doors and heaved. They groaned open and he smiled. "Open sesame." Ari gazed at with him unabashed hero worship.

Jack's mouth curled up at the corners. "Nice work, Frohike."

Frohike took a bow as he jammed open the doors. "I live to serve."

Jack checked his watch again, his dark eyes narrowing to slits. "If we get separated, we meet back here at thirteen-hundred hours." He dug in his pack, drew out four small walkie-talkies, the type families took on hikes or skiing. "Anyone gets into serious trouble, gets split from the others, give a shout on these. But remember, it's an absolute last resort." 

Frohike rolled his eyes but stuck it in his vest pocket. Ari hung hers around her neck as if it were a protective amulet.

It only took them ten minutes to find the small infirmary, which was intact, and half an hour to empty it, then they switched to the labs.

Mulder's muscles were singing with the effort by the time he and Ari had hauled out a couple of complicated-looking steel boxes that she insisted were on Scully's equipment list, but at least they were almost done.

He was carrying a huge container he had piled full of enough gauze bandages, disposable syringes and latex gloves to keep Scully very happy when he heard the sound of angry, harsh whispers outside: Frohike and Jack.

By the time he reached the truck with his arms full of equipment and supplies, Jack wasn't there. Frohike sat hunched on top of the engine like an oversized hood ornament, his boot heels wedged onto the fender. He had the rifle in the crook of his arm and he was scanning left and right with a sour expression. Moving fast up the ramp was an upright figure. Jack.

"Where the hell is he going?"

Frohike scowled. "He's gone to meet his contact. Says this is his only chance and he'll be back by 'thirteen hundred at the latest'. Asshole told me to sit tight and stay quiet."

"What's up?" Ari asked, poking her head around the door to the interior.

"Shhhhh," Frohike hissed at her. "Not so loud, dude."

"Sorry," she muttered and walked over to join them. "Who does he have to meet that it's so urgent?"

And that was the question wasn't it. Mulder heaved his armload onto the back of the truck and caught Frohike's eye. The little man's boots thumped onto the concrete as he jumped down from the truck to bar Mulder's way. "Mulder, no."

"I won't be long," Mulder said, trying to move past Frohike, anxious not to lose Jack. He was determined to find out what was going on and he had a hunch that this could be the key.

"Both of you can't go. We need you!"

Mulder hesitated for a second. Ari and Frohike had guns. Would Jack jeopardize anyone's lives by leaving them alone unless he thought they would be safe? Sit tight and stay quiet, he'd said. Mulder bit his lip, made the decision. "I won't be long."

"Mulder!" Frohike exclaimed in annoyance. 

But Ari touched his arm in restraint. "It'll be okay, Mel." She nodded at Mulder.

"Back at thirteen-hundred hours, on the dot." Mulder gave a mock salute and began jogging toward the ramp to the outside.

"Jerk," Frohike muttered after him. Mulder grinned. He had been missing the thrill of the chase.

**~+~+~**

Jack's route was taking him away from the quieter back streets around EmGen and into the heart of the city. Mulder kept a steady 100 yards behind, running along the edge of the smashed store fronts. Here it was easier to see that something had gone terribly wrong. There were looted shops, wrecked cars and, here and there, a building completely lost to fire, its blackened shell like an ugly gap in a row of teeth.

Something was burning, giving off an acrid, black smoke. Probably tires. Another smell drifted on the edge of Mulder's consciousness, too faint to be identified yet. 

Deeper into the thicket of downtown, Mulder began to notice that the piles of burned out abandoned cars didn't seem random at all.

He looked around him for a moment, his brain flipping through images as he tried to work out what was so unsettlingly familiar. Jack was still a hundred yards ahead, ducking along the line of the buildings so that cover was always close by on one side and he was always in the shadows.

Then it clicked. It was like the footage he'd seen during late night surfs round CNN, those reports from Balkan war zones that were always so jarring because the shot-up buildings were modern apartment blocks on city streets that looked a little too like home.

He slipped into the shelter of a shop doorway to take stock, glanced behind him. The cross street had been blocked off by upturned cars, so that any vehicle could only go one way. Ahead was the same story, a rough and ready barricade cut off the intersection, siphoning traffic straight ahead, along one exposed route overlooked by tall buildings.

Someone had created a sniper's alley.

He peered ahead again, and swore. The street was empty, silent. There wasn't even the faint slap of Jack's footsteps. He'd lost him on a straight road. He checked his watch. 12:20 pm. Forty minutes left.

Two choices. Go wait around with the others or walk a little further and try to spot Jack. He told himself Frohike and Ari would be fine. The truck was hidden underground. They were armed and he knew Frohike was the only one of the Gunmen who could shoot straight. 

No choice at all. He kept walking into the shadows.

A minute later, a hand clamped on his forearm and pulled. He spun off-balance before he could even reach for his gun and hands slammed him into a concrete wall, then onto the floor of the dank doorway.

Bad choice.

**~+~+~**

Scully entered the lab at a jog, pulling her hair into a sloppy, loose ponytail. Linda and Alan were standing by one of the benches, clutching mugs. Oh, God, coffee. The smell of it was making her mouth water. She wasn't entirely sure what she was going to do when they ran out of it, because it was all that got her through some days.

"Afternoon," Alan teased, lifting the mug in salute. He looked even more skeleton-like when he grinned like that now, toothy smile and wide dark eyes in a shaven skull.

She lifted her wrist and then felt foolish as she stared at bare flesh. Her watch was in the infirmary. "What time is it?"

"'Bout midday," said Linda, handing her a cup of coffee, as Scully swore under her breath. She'd meant to be up at sunrise.

Alan nodded. "You slept through. Must've needed it."

Scully restrained the urge to bite his head off. Alan was a surprisingly good nurse but a dropout with a year of medical school behind him only knew so much. "You know I had to look in on Cynthia this morning. Why didn't you wake me?"

"I handled it," he said, his tone daring her to question his ability. "I'd've come to get you if anything happened. Although I think that when Cynthia saw me come around this morning she thought I was the grim reaper."

"It's the hair," Linda said, smiling, but Scully sensed something a little off in her manner.

"Lack of it," Alan said, running a bony hand over his newly shorn head. "Cynthia is fine. Just resting up. Besides, your friend said you were wiped."

"My friend?"

"He practically ordered me to let you sleep in." He took another sip of coffee and got that mischievous look in his eyes. "He's a very insistent guy."

"Mulder." She sighed. "I see. Anything else I should know about?"

"Nope."

"They went to Louisville this morning," Linda said. Her unusually hesitant tone caught Scully's attention again.

"When will they be back?"

"Three at the latest, Mulder said," Alan added.

She felt edgy and angry. It was impossible for her to have gone with Mulder but the thought of him out there alone -- and, knowing him, in trouble -- jangled her nerves It left her with that familiar roiling feeling in the pit of her stomach she associated with him being out of cellphone range and up to his ass in trouble.

Wait. Not alone. If all had gone to plan, Ari and Frohike went too. Scully looked across at Linda; no wonder she looked pale.

There was only one solution to this kind of worry. "Then we've got a lot of work to do before they get back," she said.

**~+~+~**

Mulder's line of sight was filled with grey concrete, his nose filled with the ammonia burn of stale urine. The rough, ridged surface of a boot was pressed into the back of his neck and the very top of a rifle barrel had edged into his line of sight.

Then abruptly the boot shifted and a familiar voice rumbled: "You're a real pain in the ass, son."

He slowly pulled himself to his feet, brushing the dust off his jacket. "Hey, Jack," he drawled, "going somewhere special?"

Jack didn't seem as angry as Mulder had thought he might be. "Go back to the van, Mr. Mulder," he said wearily. "You should be helping the others. I haven't got time for this."

"Why? Meeting your contact?"

Jack's jaw clenched. "Yes. Go back."

It was an order. Mulder had had plenty of practice ignoring those. "I want to meet this guy. Who is he?" he said flippantly.

"He's an old army friend, and every second I spend here increases the risk that I'll miss the rendezvous, and lose out on information that we need." Jack took a more secure grasp on his rifle, a move that made Mulder nervous. Jack wouldn't actually go so far as to point the thing at him, would he?

"Go."

Mulder shook his head. He could see the cogs turning in the other man's brain, his finger shifting toward the trigger. 

Jack drew in a long breath through his nose. "Do you know how dangerous it is here? Even the troops are nervous, and they have a command center about ten blocks away. There's a lot to steal, too many hungry people wanting to steal it. And you're wandering down the street like it's time for a stroll in the sunshine." He gestured with the rifle, a sharp stabbing movement that made Mulder flinch.

Mulder's breath caught in his chest. He wondered if he could draw his gun out before Jack brought the rifle up.

"Don't even think about it," Jack growled. They stood in silence for a moment.

"You want to come? Okay then." Abruptly Jack slung the rifle over his shoulder and turned away. "Keep your eyes open and have your gun ready. Keeping it holstered is a mistake in this situation. And try not to distract me."

Mulder stumbled into step with him as they skirted the edge of the buildings. "Where are we going?"

"This way," Jack replied, pointing. Mulder gave him a look laden with contempt. To his surprise, the man let out a near-silent half-laugh. "I guess that isn't very helpful. How much do you know about Louisville, Mr. Mulder?"

"Muhammad Ali. Kentucky Derby. That the Louisville Slugger Museum is worth a few dollars of anyone's money? Same as any out-of-towner, I guess."

A hand clamped around his arm as Jack dragged him into another doorway. Mulder stood silent for a moment as his companion peered upwards at the building opposite. He squinted but he could see nothing but the sunlight reflected off the windows. 

Jack slipped out of the shadows again and spoke in a harsh whisper as he walked: "I was born here. If the army was my first home, Louisville was my second." Mulder looked across, wondering where the conversation was leading. "When I retired I figured I'd move back, get to know the place again but I never got the opportunity. Too busy."

"You got a point?"

"Just that that's why I ended up here," Jack said, "and I was wondering why you and Dr. Scully came all that way to Indiana."

"I'd always wanted to travel?"

Jack's lips pulled into a grim line of displeasure. "At first I thought it might be because you wanted to hide out somewhere isolated. You're on their wanted list." He stole a glance across at Mulder, measuring his reaction. "But you knew that already, didn't you?"

Jack's tone tripped all Mulder's inner alarms again. "Is that why you have our pictures?" he asked.

Two hands clamped around his biceps and shoved him off balance. Mulder's shoulder struck the wall and he felt pain shoot down his left arm. Jack pushed his face close to Mulder's, his eyes spitting anger.

"God dammit, it was you in my office, wasn't it? Does a locked door mean nothing to you?"

"Get the hell off of me!" Mulder said, his voice louder than he intended. The echo was startling. He shrugged off Jack's grip and hissed: "I want to know what's going on."

Jack was breathing heavily, his fists clenching. Then he made a visible effort to calm down and started walking again. Mulder followed. 

Jack's next words were measured as he picked his way over a pile of discarded trash. "They want both you and Scully in custody, yesterday. Of course the same is true of Frohike. And I'm not exactly on the top of their Christmas card list, these days. But you and Dr. Scully... they really have their panties in a bundle over you two. It's a problem."

"This isn't news to me," said Mulder, turning to scan behind them for a moment. It didn't look as if his shout had attracted unwanted attention. Jack led him off the main road, into a narrow back-alley that ran parallel to the main street.

"Let me tell you my dilemma, Mr. Mulder," Jack said, striding through the shadows. "At the moment, all they know is that a bunch of people are squatting at the old compound. My friend has convinced his superiors that we're just there because we've got food stashed and it's easy to defend. We want it to stay like that and one way we could show good faith is to turn over any fugitives that come our way. Chances are they would leave us alone."

Mulder felt the bite of the frosty air deep in his bones. Jack's eyes were unreadable. "Is that what you have planned?"

Jack didn't answer, just set off at a jog over a cross street. Mulder followed, feeling vulnerable and exposed. His mouth had gone dry. There was the sound of a distant shout and Jack dodged behind an overturned car and Mulder followed. 

They were crouched close together, so close that the clouds of their breath-vapor mingled as they rose into the sky. "Or I could just turn you over now," Jack said calmly. "We need Scully because she's a doctor but you haven't been anything but a useless mouth to feed so far."

"Scully would rip your head off," Mulder said in a harsh whisper. "She'd come after me."

"Maybe she would. On the other hand I don't see you around night after night when she's going over the data, working her ass off with the rest of us so that we just *maybe* have a chance of surviving. Perhaps she wouldn't miss you after all."

What the hell did Jack know about how he and Scully were with each other? Mulder felt his grip on his gun tighten almost involuntarily.

"But you want to know why I wouldn't turn you over, even now, pain in the ass though you are?" Jack hissed. He waited for a response but Mulder remained silent, watchful. "Because *we* don't do that. I'm not your enemy, Mulder. I never was."

Mulder snorted. "No, you were just following orders like all good soldiers and if you weren't retired, you'd be out there killing people by proxy with the rest of them."

Jack brought his face even closer to Mulder's, brown eyes narrowed to an angry, letterbox squint. "I gave up my career because I found out what my orders meant," he said in a tight, furious whisper. "I've been trying to get to the bottom of this since you were in Boy Scouts, son. I joined the army to protect my own people, not help their killers."

Perversely, it was the fact that Jack had lost his temper, lost a little of that Kersh-like, contemptuous calm, that drained some of Mulder's dislike. "Then make me believe it," he said. "Tell me why you insist on coming to Louisville alone."

"I'll show you why," he muttered, straightening up and ducking back down the alley again. "The army has a command post here, but I think they're thinking of pulling out of the city now."

Mulder blinked. "Now that they've infected everyone they can."

"Maybe." There was a brief silence. Jack looked at him, blinked slowly as if weighing up the options. Tell the full truth or not. "Yes. There may be more to it than I know, but yes, I think so."

"You knew?" Mulder tried to stop his voice from getting louder, as he caught up with Jack, then walked in front of him to halt him, so he could see the other man's eyes.

"I suspected," Jack muttered. "Carvalho thinks so too."

"Carvalho?"

"My contact. My former second in command, actually. I asked him about the illness and he told me he and his men had been told not to worry."

"What the hell does that mean?"

"Carvalho and I were based at Fort Detrick -- and I *know* you know what happens there." 

Mulder nodded. Fort Detrick had been the home of the military's premiere biological weapons labs for years; now it dealt in infectious diseases. Anyone who had read "The Hot Zone" knew about Fort Detrick. USAMRIID was there: the United States Army Medical Research Institute for Infectious Disease.

"I believe that we were inoculated against the disease they have released. I believe that all key personnel above a certain rank were." Jack halted, looked almost ashamed. "I believe that I'm safe to come into the city because of that. The others are not. Carvalho practically told me as much.

"That's why I control the gas supply back at the compound and who comes in and out. The only thing I can't do alone is this: restocking the supplies. That's why I wanted to get in and out of the city fast."

Mulder tried to take in the implications of what Jack was saying; the fact that this story was confirming everything he had believed for years. This was an engineered invasion, carefully planned, right down who would die first. "Why didn't you tell anyone about this?" 

"They're scared enough in there. They don't need this."

Mulder felt the surge of fury. "Not now, for God's sake. Before, when there were people who could have helped you expose this thing."

"No one would have believed me."

"Except me, huh?" Mulder's laugh was bitter.

"Yes, except you. And then I'd have been dead within a week. I needed confirmation first."

"Well, you've got your proof now. Why not tell them?"

"What can they do? Practicalities, Mr. Mulder. No point in destroying morale."

Mulder understood his point, he just didn't believe in it. "Isn't it more important to tell people the truth?"

"Not if there's nothing that can be done." Jack halted at the corner of a long boulevard and then pulled them both into the shadows. "I promised myself -- I promised I would look after them. I'm not about to remove their last hope."

"You can't protect them single-handed. We can help you if we know what we're up against." 

"So now you know."

"You need to tell Scully this, the minute we get back. This is information she can use. And tell everyone else too. Give them that information you're collating on that big map of yours. They probably suspect most of it anyway."

Jack nodded. "I'll guess I'll have to," he said.

"No," Mulder said. "You will tell them -- or else I will. If you withhold the truth, you're working against their survival."

Jack's eyes narrowed, then he nodded. 

Mulder was beginning to believe him. He wondered whether he was endangering Jack -- and himself -- by staying with him now. "Maybe I should get back to Ari and Frohike," he said. "We need to make sure that as much equipment gets back as possible." 

Jack shook his head. "Carvalho will be along any second. I can't miss this rendezvous window; it's my last chance. He mustn't see you. He's a good man but we're on opposite sides of the fence now. They'll be fine; they're armed."

**~+~+~**

Frohike didn't want Ari to see how nervous he was and he didn't want her to think about any possible danger. Nor did he want her out of sight for more than a minute at a time, so he abandoned permanent guard duty in order to help her. The truck was piled high now, and they had filled the gaps with anything light that they could scavenge and that seemed useful.

When she emerged with an armful of white coats and five packets of chocolate chip cookies from a vending machine they had smashed, he told her to sit down beside him to take five. Her cheeks were ruddy from the exertion and he could feel the sweat cooling to a shivery trickle on his own back.

He wished time would speed up for about the tenth time that day and kept his gun in one hand. Ari was nibbling on a cookie, savoring it. "It could be my last taste of chocolate ever," she said in a mournful tone that made him smile briefly. Her rifle was cradled in the crook of her arm.

Frohike let his mind wander as he scanned left and right, to the back of the parking garage. Two exits to worry about. This kind of downtime was usually good for working out knotty programming problems -- and there were plenty of those now that Langly was checking in and out of Hotel Sanity -- but he felt nothing but worry for Ari. If this was what being a parent was like, he was glad he had passed on the chance of Frohike sprouts.

The was a sharp tug on his shoulder and a finger across his lips. Frohike brought the shotgun into both hands and looked across at Ari. She was jabbing her gun in the direction of the truck.

He was perplexed for a moment, wondering what he was meant to be looking at, under he realized she meant beyond it.

He leaned to the side to see what had so alarmed Ari.

Heavy work boots, at the top of the in-ramp.


	10. Chapter 10

Carvalho was a wiry, mean-looking son of a bitch about ten years younger than Jack, with a sallow, pock-cratered face and a close-shaven head. Mulder couldn't see any rank insignia on his khakis and Carvalho's clothes were more worn and dirty than he had expected.

The officer had arrived on a sleek black Suzuki motorcycle, the low purr of the engine so quiet that Mulder had had only seconds to scramble behind one of the twisted metal mishmashes that blocked off the street.

"You're beyond late," the man snapped. "I already had to make two circuits. And where's your bike, Jack?"

"Came in the truck," Jack said. "I hid that."

"I hope you hid it well. Those fuckers over in Hazelwood ambushed two of our patrols last week, stole the vehicles, killed four men."

"And what did you do?" Jack asked, an edge to his voice.

"Me and the boys torched their fucking hideout with them in it. Warmed us up on a cold night." 

The metal of the car was freezing behind Mulder's back. He wished he could see Carvalho's face now, his body language, the way he related to Jack. Then he could get a better sense of where Jack stood.

Mulder felt a twinge of cramp in his left calf and tried to shift silently to forestall the pain. 

"What do you have for me?" Jack asked.

"Not much more than Monday. They're moving us out in three weeks, say our work here is done."

"But you're the last unit in the city!" Jack's voice rose. "There are thousands of people out there with no heat or water, they're running out of food and half of them are sick."

"Not much I can do about that. We distributed our supplies. Now we move on to Newport, Indiana, and I, for one, can't wait to get the hell out of here." His tone was tight and defensive.

Mulder waited, but Jack didn't reply for long seconds. "Good God, Paul." he muttered. "What a mess."

It didn't sound like it was said for Mulder's benefit.

"There's something else," Carvalho said slowly. "A recon patrol report that came in two days ago from Tennessee. They think they've got a second confirmation that a couple of the people we talked about are coming this way. Don't let these people in. Don't bring the shitstorm down on yourselves..."

**~+~+~**

Frohike crouched just inside the EmGen entrance, the shotgun steady in his hands. Glancing back at Ari three yards away, tucked behind the guard's desk, he saw that she looked steady and resolute. Maybe her grip was a little white-knuckled, but hell, so was his.

There were three of them. The leader seemed to be a tall, powerfully built woman in her forties with a hard, pale face. She had probably been quite the babe back when Jimmy Carter was seeing UFOs.

The other two were guys, one a big motherfucker built like a slab of concrete with tombstone teeth in a flat, hostile face. He was wearing a Cardinals cap with hair longer than Langly's sprouting from it. The other was a weaselly looking little balding guy in a long leather jacket whose eyes were darting about the place, looking for trouble. He was hefting a length of thick metal piping in one hand.

They circled the truck, peering in at the windows. This was all their Christmases come at once. When they reached the back, they broke into grins. Weasel dragged out a lab coat and pulled it on, as if modeling it. The other guy laughed but the woman looked sour. It was too far away to hear what she was saying.

They moved to the driver's side door. Frohike had locked it automatically; his hand strayed to his jacket pocket where the keys were. He couldn't let these assholes take the truck and leave them stranded. He sensed Ari trying to get his attention and turned his head.

Her eyes were wide. She was whispering something he couldn't catch.

"Stay there," he mouthed at her, hoping his eyes would reinforce the message. He prayed she would stay hidden because he didn't want to choose between protecting her and saving the truck.

Maybe if he picked the big guy off, the other two would split and the point would be moot. He wished Mulder would suddenly appear; three against three might have driven them away.

A sudden cymbal crash of breaking glass echoed loudly.

Goddammit. The weaselly little shit had put the pipe through the window and was reaching in to unlock the door. The woman had her hand on the hood, no doubt feeling for residual warmth in the engine. The big guy was already crossing around to get in the passenger side.

No choice. Frohike stood up and moved half way out of the shelter. "Back the hell away," he shouted, willing Ari to stay back.

All three of them jerked upright. "Get. Away. From the truck," Frohike repeated, training his gun on them. The immediately split up to present separate targets.

"Hey, we don't want any trouble," the woman said. "We thought this was an unattended vehicle." Weasel giggled.

Her voice was strong, her presence commanding, as if she were sending the subconscious message 'look at me'. In the mean time, the big guy was inching round the truck towards him, looking to do some damage.

There was a shuffling sound behind. Ari had her gun pointing at the man trying the sneak attack. The big guy froze and the woman's face fell a little. Two versus three wasn't so easy when the two were armed and ready to shoot. The three raised their arms and started to back away.

Ari was edging to the right to cover the big guy better when suddenly she stopped. "Shit," she whispered.

"What?" he snapped, nerves starting to fray. He glanced towards the exit ramp.

Footsteps, walking fast in their direction. At least three people, maybe more.

The woman smiled and lowered her hands.

The next second, there was a click and buzz of static, and Ari's voice carried clearly in the parking garage. "Jack! Mulder! Are you there?"

**~+~+~**

Mulder longed to stand up and shake more information out of Carvalho but he knew it would only make things worse. He didn't think the guy was lying but he wasn't certain he was telling Jack the full truth.

Jack sounded frustrated too. "But what did they say?"

"They want the guy and the woman captured yesterday. They'd settle for the guy dead but they want the woman alive."

The cooling sweat prickled on Mulder's back. It was one thing to believe that you were a marked man, another to know it for certain.

"At the moment they could care less about you, because they don't know the scale of your set-up," Carvalho went on. "Keep it hidden. Hell, I know you got some of the Louisville nutcases hiding out with you, probably even some that I should be bringing in, but this is different. These guys aint just minor irritants."

"But if we stay hidden, how can they tell who is at our compound?" Jack asked.

"They find out. I don't know how. They got special recon patrols using some kind of weirdass tracking shit our guys don't get access to," said Carvalho, sounding unsettled.

It was as if the pinpricks of sweat on Mulder's back and neck froze over in an instant. His mind instantly leapt to Scully, to the chip. What if --

The radio on Jack's belt sputtered into life; static masked Ari's words but there was no mistaking the panic in her tone. Mulder felt like icewater had been pumped into his veins. He kept low behind the piled up cars, scrambling over debris, grit biting into his palms, but he dared not stand up in case Carvalho saw him. Recognized him. 

"Jack, Mulder, we need you here now."

"What the hell?" he heard Carvalho hiss. Had the soldier caught the name Mulder?

"Go!" Jack yelled in his direction.

Mulder broke from a crouch into a sprint, trusting that Jack could make some excuse. There was a shout of surprise and anger from Carvalho, but he left it behind and pelted down the road, running faster than he had in months.

**~+~+~**

"The rest of them are coming, you know," said Ari. Her voice had a little tremor in it and Frohike willed her to be quiet. "They're on their way."

The threat sounded pathetic. They had been standing here like this for what seemed like hours, him in front, Ari a little way behind him.

He wished she were a million miles away -- although about ten would have done.

"Is that so?" the woman said, inching forwards. "We won't bother them then, we'll just take the truck and get out of your hair. Give us the keys."

The weaselly guy had been bouncing up and down on his toes for the last minute or so. "Fuck this," he muttered. "I'll just hotwire the thing." He pulled open the door and began to reach into the cabin.

Frohike's finger tightened on the trigger.

The sudden blast of the gunshot from behind him made his muscles seize for a moment.

The little guy crumpled like cheap paper, clutching at his torn-up thigh and cursing as blood coursed from between his fingers. Frohike chanced a glance behind him. Ari was looking at the gun in her hands like it was an alien thing, as if she'd had nothing to do with the squeezing of the trigger. She raised her eyes to Frohike's, and he saw in them a bleak horror he hadn't felt since he was 18 himself. She'd shot a human being, and even if the man survived, she would never be the same.

He turned back quickly. There were seven people gathered by the truck now, and they started to growl when they saw that the first gunshot would not be followed by others. Nothing so articulate as words, just sounds that promised pain. They mingled with the continuous cursing from the injured man on the ground, who was being ignored by them all.

He had two shells for the shotgun. Enough to kill the leaders, maybe scare off the rest. He heard Ari draw in a wobbly breath, step closer to him. He could see the muzzle of her gun raising again in his right-hand peripheral vision, pointing steadily. Good girl.

Now the gang in front in him began to move, slowly at first, a gap opening up around the injured man writhing on the floor as four of them went left, four right. Shit. Divide and conquer tactics. 

One man moved towards Ari, three others followed. Ari made a small noise of fear, backed away. 

"Run!" Frohike barked. Ari took off like a sprint champ. He swung round, unloaded one barrel at her pursuers as they passed him. He dropped one with a spray of shot to the midriff but the other three carried on chasing. 

Frohike swung back to cover the remaining four, stepping backwards all the time. Run, he willed Ari, get the fuck out of the way. She was young and fast and smart enough to hide and she had a clear exit up the in-ramp. 

Four left, now moving closer, one shell. Bad odds. A tiny part of his brain was shocked at the way he was calculating distances and trajectories, evaluating which was the greatest threat.

"No closer," he warned. He could barely distinguish the sound of pounding footsteps from the beating of his pulse in his ears. 

There seemed to be a lot of noise suddenly. Shouting. A figure came storming into the garage. 

Mulder. Thank Christ.

Before Mulder could stop or get his bearings, the big guy was rearing up and onto him, smacking into him like a tackle, lifting him off his feet and into one of the concrete pillars. 

But Mulder wouldn't be stopped. A twist and he was crouching on the pavement, punching upwards. A muffled report from his handgun and the other man dropped to the floor instantly, pinning Mulder under his bulk. 

Another of the guys began coming at Frohike from the front. Before he could react, the woman had moved around the side of him, grasping the gun. She kicked at the back of his knees, trying to force him to the floor. 

She was way taller than him -- and strong. He managed to catch her in the eye with one flailing hand, hardly a punch. 

She fell back, and he gripped the gun again, swinging it at her face like a club. A sharp crack and she dropped to the floor. 

He twisted around. Mulder, covered in someone else's blood, had dragged himself upright and was about to wade in to help. "Mulder, get Ari!" Frohike yelled, jerking his head in the direction she had gone.

Mulder nodded, took off again.

Suddenly, from behind, pair of arms wrapped around his shoulders, then moved downwards in a rib-cracking squeeze. He tried to kick backwards but the son of a bitch had lifted his feet off the ground. 

The gun was pinioned at his side. The woman eyed it greedily. 

"Enough," a voice bellowed somewhere close by.

A thick chopping sound and the arms around his chest locked tight enough to stop him breathing for a second then fell away. Frohike stumbled to the floor. 

He whirled to see Jack clutching the length of iron piping that had been used to smash the truck window. Blood all over it. A guy was lying at his feet.

Jack was looking somewhere beyond Frohike's left shoulder. Frohike turned again and the woman was scrambling to her feet, helped by the only man left standing.

For a second it looked like they might advance again but one look at Jack convinced them otherwise. They backed away, then broke into a run at the ramp.

Frohike was still gasping for air. Jack took the man Ari had shot by the collar, ignoring his semi-conscious moans, and dragged him away from the truck, leaving a wide red stripe in his wake.

"Field clear?" Jack asked. 

"I think they're gone," Frohike replied.

There was sudden shouting from around the corner of the building.

"Mulder," Frohike said.

Jack gave a sharp nod, drawing up his gun to the firing position, ready to guard the truck. "Help him."

**~+~+~**

Mulder came up the ramp and ran around the back of the EmGen building, following a fading echo of footsteps. He saw figures disappear into an alley but by the time he reached the entrance they had disappeared.

"Ari!" he yelled. No reply.

His boots crunched through a thin crust of ice on the puddles at the entrance, dirty water soaked his calves. The air was freezing, it knifed through his lungs. Smell of decay everywhere.

He called her name again. 

He reached the end of the alley where it split into a T. Nothing but brick walls either direction, a couple of fire escape ladders, dumpsters and trash. A wide layer of uncracked ice spread across the most of pavement 15 yards to his left, so chances were good they had gone the other way.

Mulder hefted the gun, slick with sweat and blood, and moved to his right, keeping his back to one wall, edging past the rusted ladder of a fire escape.

Something grabbed hold of his foot. Panicked, he pulled hard and his boot came up wrapped in plastic garbage bags. He shook them off.

A sound to his left and he whirled. A rat skittered into a doorway. The door had been twisted off; it was propped sideways against the wall.

He edged forward, checked behind him. Nothing. Then out of the corner of his eye he spotted something odd. Vapor twisting upwards from the sea of trash under the door. He waited until he saw it again.

Not heat. Breath.

"Ari?"

The sudden clang of footsteps on metal above was shockingly loud. He looked up, a red snow of rust blinding him for a moment. A pair of scuffed Doc Marten boots swung into his vision, almost took Mulder's head off, as a large figure launched himself off the fire escape. 

Mulder rolled out of the way and scrambled to his feet again to face a young guy with blonde hair longer than Langly's, dressed in torn black clothes. Hunger had hollowed out his cheeks. 

Mulder raised his gun. "Don't even start with me."

Blondie raised his hands but there was no surrender in his expression. Mulder could hear the thud of boots but the echo made it difficult to tell the direction of approach. "Ari?" Mulder yelled.

The lean-to door crashed flat onto the pavement as Ari sprang from her hiding place like a jack in a box, her rifle aimed at the blond boy.

Her eyes widened in alarm. "Mulder, get..."

The rest of her words were lost as someone barrelled round the corner and into his back, knocking him to the floor. His gun went flying. All the breath was smashed out of his lungs. There was yelling ringing around the alleyway, he thought it might be Ari.

The guy was heavy and he smelled like a goat, like he'd been working on a particularly deadly case of B.O. for weeks. Mulder jabbed an elbow back into Stinky's paunch and was rewarded with a satisfying gasp of pain. 

Satisfaction didn't last long: fingers raked through his hair, gripping and smacking his head into the ground. A dizzying jolt as his left cheek hit concrete and his nose was pushed sideways.

A swish-click and there was a bright blade glinting in Stinky's hand. "You're dead," he growled.

Mulder gave a half-twist, almost shook the guy off. He snatched up a stone, struck out at the guy's knife hand as hard as he could, hitting the knifepoint dead on. The blade was forced backwards, slicing into the man's palm. He screeched, dropped the knife, distracted from Mulder by the pain.

Blondie's Doc Martens were approaching. Behind Ari, he could see a third man running towards them. 

Mulder got to his knees, trying to choke out a warning between spitting out the blood running from his nose. Gun... where was his gun?

A boot smashed into his side. He curled tight around the pain. 

He heard Ari cry out and there was the sound of a rifle firing, the whip-clang sound of a ricochet off the fire escape. She'd missed. 

Stinky was on his feet and kicking. Something in Mulder's wrist gave as he tried to block the blow.

Ari was yelling something. Through the pain, he willed her to run away if she could. He couldn't tell if he was shouting or not. He thought maybe he was because the back of his throat hurt.

He rolled as far away from the boots as he could and dropped his arms to look up the alley.

Ari had jumped on Stinky's back, digging her fingers into his eyes. He was staggering backwards, howling, threw her off. She scrambled to her feet and clamped her hands on his shoulders, kneeing him in the groin. 

Stinky collapsed in a howling mess but there must be more of them because someone was still kicking Mulder.

"Get the fuck off of him." Frohike's voice, sounding scared and furious.

He heard a shot, pain exploded in his head, and everything turned black.


	11. Chapter 11

"What time is it?" Byers asked, his hand hovering over the discard pile.

"Twenty minutes since the last time you asked, John," responded Linda. "Now draw."

"Sorry," he said. He drew a card, looked at it, and slipped it into his hand. He laid down something else, Scully couldn't see what. "Do you think . . . Never mind."

It was early evening. If the windows hadn't been covered with old sheets, they would be able to see the last hint of color in the sky. At least it was clear, Scully thought, and not too cold. She didn't have to worry about them getting caught in the snow. 

No, today snow was the least of their problems. She turned her attention back to her notes. Not that she was actually working. At some point after three, when worry had really begun to kick in, she'd started sketching out some of the chemical compounds in Susanne's research notes. She told herself it was to refresh her memory but it was really just doodling for science geeks. Distraction.

They had only gone for supplies. They should have been back hours ago. Mulder had done this to her more times than she could count, but he'd never taken three other people with him before. 

Scully looked back at the other end of the table, where Linda and Byers had been playing gin haphazardly for the past hour. Byers looked pretty much the same as he always did: neat and self-possessed. How did he keep his clothes so clean? But he kept looking at the door, and at the dead clock over the entry to the kitchen, the one permanently stuck at 9:41. 

He put down the queen of diamonds and Linda picked it up. She slotted it into her hand and dropped the jack of clubs on the table.

"Gin," Linda announced, with no discernible air of triumph.

"That's seven to one," Byers said with a weak laugh. "I've never been very good at card games."

Linda didn't respond to his weak sally, she just shuffled the cards again. She wasn't pretending to hide her worry. Scully knew Linda couldn't have stopped Ari from going, but dear God how she must have wanted to. 

"When did they say they'd be back?" Linda asked, as she shakily dealt out another hand.

Scully reached for the calculator. "In the afternoon," she replied, and didn't look at her watch to remind herself that "afternoon" was hours ago. Something had gone wrong. She didn't need to say it; they all knew it.

She looked again at Linda. The geneticist was tapping her fingers on the table as Byers dithered over his hand. It was clear that Linda's mind was far from the 52 scraps of pasteboard on the table. 

At least there was no uncertainty for her any more. Scully was pretty sure what had happened to her mother, her brothers, her daughter. Only one person to worry about now. Perhaps they'd taken a detour.

A rustling noise drew her attention to the doorway, as Langly came through, his arms full of newspapers. He ignored them completely, as usual, and sat down alone at a table at the other side of the cafeteria. 

Humming, he spread the papers out around him and lit one of the tea-lights on the table. Scully watched him for a moment, sighed and then closed her notebook. She couldn't concentrate and she was only using up paper anyway. 

Banging sounds were emerging from the kitchen; it would be dinner soon. Byers lit a small candle to illuminate the gin game. Scully crossed the room to slide onto the bench across from Langly. He looked about the same as he always did: tall, thin, the angles of his face jutting awkwardly as if his growth had stalled out at age seventeen. His glasses were wrapped with black electrical tape at the temple; Scully had overheard Frohike saying that they could be repaired but Langly refused all offers of help.

She hadn't really talked to Mulder about Langly; she hadn't really talked to Mulder period. But something had happened during the Gunmen's trip to Indiana, and Langly still hadn't recovered. Mulder was the only one he would really talk to -- properly talk, not just D and D-speak -- and sometimes it seemed that he was the only one who could talk to Mulder too.

"Hey," she said, after several moments during which he didn't acknowledge her presence. He looked up then, and peered at her over his glasses.

"Hey, Scully," he said, smiling, as if he hadn't noticed her there before.

"What are you doing?" She gestured at the papers and the small container of glue, and the tiny pair of blunt-ended scissors he had forced onto his long and awkward fingers. The small handle marked the skin of his hands in red and angry rings, but he kept using them, cutting short strips out of the newspaper and sheets of green construction paper. 

Langly looked at her as if she had just landed from another planet. "Decorations for the party, man. Gotta have decorations."

"Party?" Where did Langly think he was? He must be more divorced from reality than anyone knew.

"The Christmas party. Didn't Mulder tell you? We're having it on Christmas Eve. We'll have music, and a tree, I think, and decorations, and the guys are even making beer! It'll be great! Got a shirt with the Grinch on it -- not that asshole Jim Carrey, the real Grinch -- and Jerry's going to play his fiddle and there'll be dancing. It'll be cool."

No, Mulder hadn't told her. She wasn't sure what she'd have said if he had. It was an insane thing to do when they were clinging onto survival. 

Scully looked at Langly, the flame of the candle reflected in the twin lenses of his glasses while his hands laboriously worked the dull scissors, then glanced over her shoulder at Linda, gazing into the candle flame now, and Byers, laying out a game of solitaire. 

Well, maybe they needed a party after all. Scully reached across the table and gently disentangled the scissors from Langly's hands. "I'll cut," she said. "You paste."

**~+~+~**

Half an hour later, they heard the growl of an engine. Langly heard it first, and was out the cafeteria door before Scully realized what was going on. It wasn't until there was a brief glare of headlights against the curtain over the windows, and a gasp from Linda, that Scully realized the soft rumble she could now hear was the battered truck.

Linda stumbled to her feet, knocking her chair over, and headed to the door. Scully leaned over to blow out Langly's candle, then looked up at Byers. "Time to find out," he said softly.

Byers nodded, and followed her from the room. She shoved her hands into her pockets to keep them hidden. Scully heard other people running downstairs and outside to help unload and get news of the outside world.

By the time Scully reached the main doors, there was a small crowd around the truck, maybe fifteen people in all. 

She spotted Frohike, moving fast despite his bulk, swatting at people in his way as he clambered from the bed of the truck and jumped almost two-thirds of his own height to the ground. She couldn't see Jack, but she could hear him. He was snapping commands, his voice official and tense, organizing the others into a human chain to unload the supplies. 

He ignored all questions and he seemed strained, tight and angry. Goddamn Mulder and his "instincts" anyway. What had he done this time? Had he pissed Jack off so much that the colonel had decided to make him walk home? 

She saw Ari, that unmistakable frizz of dark hair bobbing above the crowd as she jumped out of one of the truck's doors and ran around to the other. There, she and Frohike reached for something, something too heavy and awkward to handle with ease.

Still no Mulder. She scanned the crowd; she was so used to looking for him after almost a decade that she could probably have picked him out on satellite photos. 

Where the hell was he? She could feel her heartbeat start to accelerate; her anxiety building for every second she failed to spot him. So help her God, if he'd done something foolish...

It wasn't until Scully slipped forward through the crowd to give Ari a hand that she realized that Frohike and Ari were manhandling a blood-soaked, semi-conscious Fox Mulder out of the truck.

"Christ, not again," muttered Scully, rushing forward to help.

**~+~+~**

The infirmary was better lit now; someone had finally scrounged blackout curtains for the second floor, so instead of candles, Scully had a single fluorescent tube over by the makeshift dispensary and an oil lamp to work by everywhere else. Unfortunately, it was a cheap decorative lamp and the rancid oil smelled vaguely of lilacs.

They deposited Mulder on the bed. He was more alert now, licking his split lip, cradling his right arm and hissing as Frohike propped him up with a couple of pillows. 

Scully poured clean filtered water into an old spaghetti pot on the grate of the Coleman stove and laid out a few bandages.

She knew she was procrastinating. "I'll need his shirt off," she said. Frohike shifted awkwardly and then began unbuttoning Mulder's blood-soaked shirt.

"If you're undressing me, Fro', this must be a nightmare," Mulder mumbled, batting Frohike's hands away with his uninjured arm and trying to do it himself.

She picked up a tray of supplies and crossed the room to where he was sitting. His small, involuntary moan and the way he was sitting told her that he'd done something painful to his ribs and one shoulder. 

"Mulder, stop," she commanded. "I'll take it off."

Mulder gave Frohike a woozy but triumphant smile and she restrained the urge to throw something at him. He winced again as his arm got snagged in the sleeve. She freed it deftly, then pulled the shirt off. He began to lie down but she stopped him. "Stay still," she snapped.

"Was he unconscious for more than a couple of minutes?" she asked Frohike. 

"I don't think so," Frohike replied. "He was pretty much awake the whole way back because the truck jounced him around so much. We kept him talking."

"Was there any nausea? Vomiting?" 

Frohike shook his head and began to speak but Mulder interrupted: "Hey, I'm here. You could ask me, you know." 

She ignored that. "Thanks," she told Frohike, "you can go now." She hadn't meant to sound like she was dismissing him, but he seemed grateful to leave. 

The light cast by the oil lamp was not perfectly steady, but it was good enough to show the worst of the damage. Not all the blood on him was his. The first thing she'd noticed when they pulled him out of the truck was a dark smear running from his left ear to his cheekbone. When she saw it was mud, for a moment the relief pushed all other thoughts out of her mind. 

"So. Nausea?"

"A little," he mumbled. "Not too bad." She placed a hand on his forehead to keep his head still and picked up a small candle, moving it close to his face to check pupil reactivity. Their motion was sluggish.

He reared back. "Hey. Flames, hair," he mumbled. "Not a good mix."

"Oh, just hold still." He looked hurt at her tone but it did the trick. She moved the candle to the other side of his body, illuminating where the oil lamp could not. She picked up a wet cloth and wiped the blood and mud stains away as he tried not to flinch.

Underneath, the bruises were already beginning to show, and his back and sides were mottled with the marks of fists and boot heels, the red patches contrasting sharply with his skin in the golden light cast by the lamp. Underlying the contusions were older scars, paler yet against his sallow skin, tangible reminders of past escapades, many of which hadn't ended so well for either of them.

She made him lie down while she palpated his abdomen, looking for internal injury. He tensed every time he was in pain, which was often, looked acutely uncomfortable and told her her hands were cold. She didn't reply and he lapsed into silence.

The nosebleed was minor, but he winced when Scully manipulated his nose. "Do you have to do that?" His voice was low, and he cast a glance up at her before looking away.

"It's not broken," she replied mildly, before turning away for bandages and disinfectant. She wasn't rough but she didn't make much effort to be gentle either as she cleaned and dressed Mulder's many smaller injuries. 

The dressing completed, she had to deal with his ribs and wrist. The ace bandages were still on the table by the window, where she had forgotten them. 

Suppressing a sigh at her own forgetfulness, Scully said, "stay there," and crossed the room to the table. When she turned around, her hands full of the soft rolls of tape, Mulder had lain back and squeezed his eyes shut. He looked, from this angle, as tired and depressed as she had ever seen him.

It wasn't the same as before. There were too many other lives at stake now. She'd had Frohike's garbled Cliff Notes version of what had happened as they walked up to the infirmary, and so far as she could tell, Mulder could have gotten them all killed by splitting up the group. 

She kept thinking about Linda's face as they had waited in the cafeteria; about how dependent this entire community was on Jack's leadership. How dependent she and Linda were on Frohike's technical skills to keep the computers running while they analyzed the data from Susanne Modeski's materials.

Scully tapped Mulder on the shoulder, a roll of Ace bandages in each hand. "You can't sleep, you have a concussion. Now sit up; I need to wrap your ribs." He did so, with a long-suffering sigh, and raised his arms above his head as she unrolled the bandages.

He sat there, Scully thought, sullen as a schoolboy caught cutting eighth-grade algebra class. As if he'd rather they'd left him there.

"Breathe out," she said sharply, and began to wrap the bandages around his chest, compressing his bruised ribs so they wouldn't move any more than absolutely necessary. Between the wrapping and some analgesics, he should be functional, if sore.

If Ari and Frohike had not been with him, Mulder would have died. The kicking would have continued, the beating would have resulted in internal injuries, and he would have bled to death long before he got back to the compound. 

Scully would have been left alone, with Frohike's crazed compatriots. No one would have been here who even knew what she was outside the image of Agent Scully, who knew her mother's name.

God DAMN him. Scully tightened up the bandages one last bit, then reached for the bandage to deal with his wrist.

"Jesus, Scully, think it's tight enough?" Mulder shifted, and twisted his shoulders back and forth in apparent discomfort.

"You have bruised ribs, Mulder -- they have to be wrapped so they can heal." She reached for his hand to examine the injured wrist and he twitched it out of her reach. "Mulder!"

"It's fine -- it's just a sprain," he muttered.

"It's a sprain, and it has to be supported so it will heal properly," Scully insisted, and this time managed to grab his hand. Unfortunately she moved too fast and tweaked the wrist the wrong way while she pulled it toward her.

"Agh!" Mulder yelled, yanking his hand from her grasp. He stood up suddenly, swaying a little. "What are you trying to do to me, Scully?"

"I'm *trying* to fix you up, Mulder. Again." She sat down on the cot he had vacated and crossed her arms over her chest. "Of course, if you'd rather stay damaged, if you'd rather go out there and get yourself killed, well -- be my guest."

He turned that incredulous look on her, the one he'd perfected over years of absurd paranormal theories cannoning into sound scientific fact. "You think I'm trying to kill myself?"

"Jesus, Mulder, I don't know *what* you're doing. You're sure as hell not being much help around here, are you?" She couldn't keep looking at him -- the urge to just slug him was too strong. Instead she tossed the forgotten Ace bandages down on the cot and crossed to the door. "You go get yourself killed -- maybe that way you can get some of that attention you're so jealous of Jack for."

She let the door slam behind her, and didn't bother to wipe her eyes until she was at the bottom of the stairs.

**~+~+~**

//December 20//

They'd had a break in the weather, and it was warmer than it had been since he and Scully had arrived here. But it was still too cold to be down by the river without a hat or gloves. Didn't matter, though: down here, Mulder could sit in silence without anyone else around. He shoved his fists further into his pockets and glared at the water. 

Scully hadn't spoken to him since she ran out of the infirmary -- he'd spent the next day flat on his back in his room and when he went back to get the dressings changed, the kid, Alan, had looked after him. His ass was freezing but his thoughts were spinning.

If she'd come along it wouldn't have happened. If she'd come along it wouldn't have made any difference. If he'd given Jack a chance, tackled him about the missing information with a bit more tact, he wouldn't have pulled such a moronic stunt. Perhaps then Jack would still have his military contact; Carvalho hadn't turned up at the last rendezvous. If he'd fucking managed not to drop his gun just when things got crazed --

Mulder choked out a laugh and let his head thump against the top of the bench. He'd burned so many bridges this time, not even Scully had the patience to deal with him. 

Dammit. He couldn't even run until his ribs got better. Instead he just sat and watched the river flow by. There was a scrim of ice along the edge of the water, oak and maple leaves caught in it like flowers behind glass. There were still a few leaves on the trees as well, rustling in the light breeze that chilled his nose.

At least he had spoken to Jack. The colonel had agreed to come clean about what he knew of the disease -- though not that he was immune -- and the invasion at the next group gathering, and to take ideas on what could be done. Mulder had agreed to analyze the data Jack had and see how it meshed with what he knew, though privately he was pretty sure that his first assessment was right and there was little they could do. 

An uneasy peace had broken out between them. If only he could say the same of more important people in his life.

As he slowly shredded an oak leaf he heard voices behind him, and realized he wasn't the only one anxious for some space. He glanced over his shoulder and saw Linda and Ari walking toward him, deep in conversation. He grinned when Ari waved an arm so wildly her mother had to duck; then sobered again. Linda wasn't too keen on him at the moment

He stood, intending to duck away through the trees, but they had spotted him. They left the path and came over to him, Ari was wearing a huge black sweatshirt emblazoned "Miskatonic University" over an ornate seal. 

"Mulder! Where you been?" The bruises on Ari's jaw were fading.

"Hey, Ari," he replied, and nodded to Linda. "Linda. Good to see you."

Linda was usually more sober than her daughter, but now the difference was pronounced. Lines bracketed her broad mouth that he hadn't noticed before. She nodded, no warmth in her face.

"Hey, Mulder -- I've been meaning to talk to you." Ari's complexion had darkened further, and she looked down at her boots before raising her eyes again to meet his. "I've never had to say this before -- I mean, it sounds so corny, but I want to thank --" 

Mulder cut her off with a hand to her lips. There was a distinct thrum in the distance, rapidly growing louder and nearer. oh, God, was this it? Had Carvalho recognized him and decided to send in troops? 

Pulling Ari with him, Mulder waved Linda back into the sketchy shelter of the trees. He crouched down, close beside the corrugated bark of an old oak, and peered toward the river. 

"Mulder, what is it?" Linda kept her voice low, but she sounded as if she were humoring a twelve-year-old. Mulder wasn't offended -- he knew he'd have to win back her trust.

"Choppers," he replied, wishing he had something more than a sidearm with him, like maybe a bazooka. Half-turning, he waved at the women to drop down into the brush. "Military choppers, maybe Ospreys -- "

His voice cut off as the helicopters came into view around a curve in the river. Yes, there were two helicopters -- but there was also something else. Something Mulder had managed to forget about in the strain and the horror of the weeks since this had all started. Those terrified moments on a hillside in Kentucky had seemed very far away. Now it was as if he were still there, crouched in the brush with Maggie Scully, hoping desperately to remain unseen.

Ari gasped as it came into view. It was a ship, dwarfing the helicopters flanking it, its sleek lines far more threatening than the gun barrels on the helicopters. Just the sight of it turned his insides to water. Broad daylight, but Mulder felt a chill as it passed in front of them, moving in complete silence. The water underneath continued flowing smoothly downstream. 

He heard Linda hiss, and tightened his fists on his knees. There was no knowing the range or capacities of their sensors, whether they could hear voices, radio transmissions -- or whether they were honing in on another signal entirely. "Weird tracking shit," he remembered hearing Carvalho say.

Fuck. Scully was only 800 yards away, working in the lab or chatting with Frohike. Could the ship find her? Was it calling her now?


	12. Chapter 12

Mulder forced himself to remain still.

As the ship passed by, ignoring the compound to move leisurely down the river, heading for Louisville, he felt something in his chest loosen; relief that his screw-up hadn't brought consequences this time. All the same, when the clatter of the choppers had faded into silence he stumbled to his feet, his legs shaking.

He couldn't stay -- he had to make sure she was okay, and warn Jack. Only when he was three quick paces away did he remember what Ari had begun to say. He paused, and turned back to the women still standing in the shrubbery. Linda's face was pale as the drifts of snow caught in the shade of the trees.

"Ari," he said, and stalled. She turned her large dark eyes on him, still stunned. "I've been meaning to say this for a day or two. Thanks for saving my life. I owe you one."

Then he turned and jogged up the path towards headquarters with as much speed as his bruised body could handle. He had to talk to Jack, and Scully.

Langly pointed him to the lab, then returned, grumbling, to his beloved cards. The lab door needed to be oiled; it squeaked as he opened it. He was glad he'd kept his jacket: it was cold here. 

"Scully? Scully, are you here?" He couldn't see her anywhere, just tables and computers and some chairs scavenged from the cafeteria. She had to be here -- Langly had said she was here. She couldn't have gone out -- her coat was there, on that chair.

"Scully!"

"Hmm? Yeah, I'm here. What do you *want*, Mulder?" Her grumpy voice came from the far side of the room; he crossed the room in three quick steps and followed it to a corner. She was sitting cross-legged on the floor, fiddling with the power cables on a monitor.

Scully looked pissed off, and disheveled, and like she could use a week with a masseur. But she was still wearing his Oxford sweatshirt, and she was still here. Not -- wherever it was she would have gone if they'd called her. 

He sagged for a moment against the desk. She was here. Whole, and talking to him, if not happily. He didn't have to tell her what he'd just seen -- but he was going to tell Jack, and if she found out he'd hidden this from her, she'd take off his hide in tiny increments. Better not.

"I -- I just saw them again, Scully. A ship. Like we saw in Kentucky."

Her head whipped up to look at him directly. "What? Where?" She tried to get up, nearly lost her balance, and grabbed the edge of the desk to pull herself back on balance where once she would have grabbed his hand to stay upright. 

He tried not to pay attention. "Down by the river," he said. "It was heading downstream, with two military choppers. Did -- did you hear it? Feel it?"

She clambered out from behind the desk and came around to him. "No, I felt nothing. But... wait, just now? Because I did get lightheaded a little while ago -- I thought I might have been dehydrated." Her lips tightened. 

"So at least we know that half a mile away is just out of range. That's something, right?" he said.

His partner's ashen face told him that it wasn't enough. She went back behind the desk and began pushing the power cables into their ports with deliberate, angry force. There was a stony, tense silence. 

"Perhaps there's some kind of shielding in the building, something we could use," he said, offering her an opening.

She refused to look at him. "Mulder, I don't want to talk about this right now."

"But we should try..." he began but she interrupted him. 

"Try what? There's nothing to be done without cutting it out and you wouldn't let me do that, would you?" She was twisting a tag around two wires with such force that the plastic snapped and she snatched up a replacement with a muttered oath

"No. I don't think that's the right solution. I think there are other avenues we could explore," he replied.

She glared at him. "Whatever happened to 'don't harbor any illusions'?" she asked pointedly, then turned back to her task.

He sighed, stung by her tone. There were so many bridges to mend and the most important was right here. "Look, about that day..."

"Mulder, I'm busy," she said tersely, thrusting a small hand into the spaghetti of wires. 

"I just wanted to tell you that I was wrong," he murmured and left the room.

**~+~+~**

//December 21//

"Down, two, three, four..."

Mulder let the breath whistle through his teeth as he lowered his right leg slowly, the stacked weights on the machine clinking as they jostled against their fellows. He hated doing weights, particularly legwork, but with these ribs he couldn't run, and he needed to do something to clear his head.

He resettled before starting the next repetition, and winced as his ribs reminded him of his injury. The gym was empty in the middle of the day. Scully, no doubt, was working in the labs with Frohike and Linda, running tests with the equipment they had brought back. Mulder hadn't turned the lights on, so the gym was lit only by the windows set high in the rear wall. The light cast thin and ghostlike shadows across the floor. He did one more rep on his right leg, and switched to his left.

It was somewhat cathartic to be exercising, although he knew that if Scully caught him she'd be furious. That was one reason to be here in the middle of the day. 

There was a creak, and a flash of light in the mirror as the door swung open and then closed. Scully wasn't in the lab after all. Mulder suppressed a sigh. If he didn't move, she wouldn't see him in the dark.

But she did.

"Mulder?" Scully peeled off her jacket and dropped it over the abs machine. "What are you -- oh. You shouldn't be -- "

"I know," he said, sharply enough to cut her off. He looked away from her and raised his left leg. It was harder than it looked: because of his bruised ribs and his sprained wrist, he couldn't pull up against the handles on either side of his hips. He was so focused on maintaining his balance with his right foot on the floor that he didn't realize Scully had crossed the room until the lights went on.

It was too bright, suddenly too bright, and he dropped his left leg. The weights fell with a shuddering clank. "Shit!"

"Sorry," said Scully. But she didn't look sorry, as she climbed onto the StairMaster with a battered paperback. She looked normal.

She looked normal, he realized, not wasted with grief or fear. He could tell she'd put on some weight, and her skin wasn't the grey shade it had been for that last week in the truck. Regardless of what he thought about life at the plant, things were definitely better for Scully. Hell, she even had friends. He supposed he'd been jealous of the way she was fitting in there but now he was just glad she was feeling better.

Mulder chewed on his lip for a full set of reps on the left leg, then got up to stretch. He knew it wasn't an accident that he found himself on the floor not far from Scully's machine. He sat with one foot tucked up to his other thigh, and leaned forward. Stretching got harder as he grew older. Hissing with the effort, he reached towards his left foot, and held the position for a count of twenty. He needed to do this more frequently than just once or twice a week.

"Mulder?"

He turned his head to the side, and peered up at Scully. "Yeah?"

She had stopped moving, and the steps of the StairMaster had sunk to the ground. She wrapped her hands around the bars of the machine. "I -- I need to apologize to you. I've been dismissive, and I was unforgivably cruel to you the other day, in violation of my oath as a physician. You were my patient, and I --- I just wanted to tell you I'm sorry."

"No." The bluntness of his response surprised him.

"What?" Scully blinked.

"Don't apologize to me."

"What do you mean? Mulder, I'm sorry --"

He never did hear what she was sorry about. The front door to the gym swung open with a crash. "Agent Scully?"

From his spot on the floor, Mulder couldn't see the door, but the voice was Byers'. There was an element of excitement in his tone Mulder hadn't heard since the business with the digital tape.

"What is it, John?" Scully got off her machine and wiped her face with a towel.

"There's --" Byers halted. "Look, just come outside."

"Okay," she said, and came to the door, casting a look back toward Mulder. He shrugged at her, and her expression lightened.

She went out, and the door began to swing closed, and just as it did so, he heard a rumble of a familiar voice from their old life -- and Scully said, "Sir!"

Mulder laughed.

Scully led their visitor in out of the cold. Skinner looked a little more battered and careworn, his long leather jacket hung looser on his broad shoulders, he hadn't shaved in days and his glasses had a thin crack across one lens, but all the same he was a solid, weirdly comforting presence.

He clamped a big hand around Mulder's, shaking it in a heartfelt, warm greeting, then slung an arm around Scully's shoulder, hugging her to his side. She wrapped her arms around his waist, squeezing her eyes shut as if in silent prayer, before stepping back. She looked happy, if a little embarrassed. "How did you find us?" Mulder asked.

"I didn't at first," Skinner said, releasing Scully's shoulder. "I was told the direction you were taking and I was given directions to cells in this area. This is the third place I tried."

Mulder felt his neck ice up once again. "People know we're here?"

"Friends, Mulder," Skinner said, "We have friends as well as enemies out there. But before we start with the road stories, there's something I need to show you."

**~+~+~**

"Infection 30%, mortality 50%  
0.85^k = target/6b, where k is iterations

Cholera  
Typhus  
Yellow Fever  
Malaria  
Smallpox  
TB  
Marburg  
Lassa 

R&D at Detrick. Coordination centers at Sill, Jackson, Belvoir, Drum, China Lake, Huachuca, Mountain Home, Umatilla, McCoy, Wainwright." 

Scully flattened the crumpled scrap of paper in her hands, then laid it on the glossy surface of the conference room table. She wished furiously, just for a moment, that Skinner had not arrived with this news. That she didn't have to know that the tuberculosis now ravaging Louisville was only the beginning.

A dark finger reached out to tape the paper. "How trustworthy is this information?" asked Jack. "Can we rely on it?"

Mulder snorted. "Trustworthy isn't a word I would use in regard to Alex Krycek."

Skinner shifted uncomfortably. "I have to agree, but . . . " He hesitated for a long moment. Scully blinked; was Skinner going to defend Krycek?

"But?" prodded Jack.

"But everything else he told me when he gave me this seems to have been true. And he has, in the past, been the source of valuable information."

"Sure," muttered Mulder. "When he wasn't being a murderer and a traitor." Jack shot a glance at him; Mulder shrugged but subsided. That was new; Mulder hadn't ever deferred to Jack before. Just what else had happened on that trip to Louisville?

It was late morning; Jack had called the meeting after being introduced to Skinner but in the absence of cell phones it had taken a while to gather people together. At least that had given her old boss time to change his travel-stained clothes. He was sitting behind the table in a clean shirt, looking as if he had only just restrained himself from putting a tie on -- she could almost fool herself that they were back in their old roles. 

Then she would gaze across at Mulder -- usually the immaculate dresser but now bearded and shaggy haired, in jeans and a slightly grubby sweater -- and remember that everything had changed.

They looked, Scully thought, like an uneasy gathering of conspirators. Jack and Linda to Skinner's left, she and Mulder, Byers and Frohike to his right. Jack had unfolded and spread out a huge map which was covered in scrawl and lines.

She cleared her throat. "Yes, Krycek has given us leads. Other times they were just red herrings. How can we know which this is?"

There was a short silence. Skinner raised his head. "I think it's true." His voice was soft; Scully had to strain to hear him. "It fits in with the little we've been able to pick up about the project."

"Christ!" Linda stood up and flung her chair back from the table. "What's wrong with you people! You're talking about the deaths of millions, and you're calculating whether some guy's testimony is reliable?"

"Sit *down*, Dr. Carlyle." Jack's voice was sharp but not angry. "Hysteria won't help." Linda stared at him wide-eyed for several moments before her head bobbed once and she sank into an empty chair.

"Mr. Skinner," said Jack, turning away from Linda. "Do you have any corroborating information to support this?"

"This indicates a high level of military involvement, beyond even what Dr. Scully discovered about the National Guard. And it's certain the military's involved -- that was clear to me even before the Pulse." Skinner shook his head. "But there must be military units that don't know the purpose behind what they're doing," he added. "They can't all be in on this. I'm sure that by now, even the most naive commanders are beginning to figure out something is off. I wouldn't be surprised if some have started thinking about mutiny."

"That's my expectation as well, Mr. Skinner," said Jack. "The military is far less monolithic than many people understand." 

Skinner nodded curtly. Veterans bonding, Scully thought, with a twinge of amusement. It didn't surprise her that Skinner would get along with Jack -- the same things that got under Mulder's skin were precisely the characteristics Skinner would respond best to.

Mulder shifted next to her. Scully felt the paper under her fingers move; in her surprise, she lifted her hand, and Mulder twitched it away. He examined it carefully for a long moment, his fingers rubbing against the torn and stained edges. Jack asked Skinner something about troop movements along their route, but Scully watched Mulder.

She could see his brain turning, skimming over possibilities like a stone skipped across the surface of a lake. Sometimes he made the most amazing---

"Shit," muttered Mulder, and dropped the paper. It floated a bit in the still air of the conference room before landing in front of the empty chair between them. He glanced at her and shook his head.

"It's incomplete--" he began to say, and was interrupted by Jack.

"You have an idea, Mr. Mulder?" Jack continued to call Mulder "Mr." despite Mulder's obvious annoyance. Perhaps because of Mulder's obvious annoyance. 

Mulder nodded. "I think this information may be accurate, but it's incomplete."

"It couldn't be anything but incomplete, Mulder," Scully said. "It's only 30 words!"

"No, I mean -- look, Scully, TB is number 6 on the list. But it's the first one we've seen, and the only disease we've heard any reports of. This list of coordination sites doesn't include any National Guard bases; but it's the Guard that's spreading the plague. There's more going on than just what Krycek gave us here."

"Then where are the blankets coming from around here?" asked Byers. "Who's distributing them? And how do the National Guardsmen keep from catching the TB?"

Jack shifted; it was the first time Scully had ever seen him look the least bit uncomfortable. "They've been vaccinated. I think this plan went into action a long time ago and I was vaccinated myself as part of it."

Scully only just suppressed a murmur of surprise and anger at Jack for keeping that from her. She looked across at Mulder and expected him to do the same but his expression was almost approving. Frohike nodded, as if something important had clicked into place. Dammit. Had she been the only one who didn't know?

Jack leaned across the table and grabbed the paper, his eyes narrowed. "Fort McCoy is a National Guard installation. But Mr. Mulder is right -- these other installations occupy different spots in the DoD structure. Mountain Home is an Air Force base but Detrick, Sill, Jackson, Belvoir are all Army installations. And China Lake is a Naval Weapons Center. As it is, the nearest base to us listed here is Jackson. And that's a long ways away." He looked down at the map. "That doesn't make sense. This effort could be very poorly organized and scattershot, or this list is incomplete. I know what my guess is."

"There's definitely somewhere nearer than that," Skinner said. "The troop movements alone..." 

Scully blinked and zoned out Skinner's words. She stared at the map, processing all that she had been told. She could almost see the edges of the answer in her mind, hiding, slipping away -- something about the names, the way the lines of troop movements intersected...

Mulder had seen her expression change. He leaned forward. "What is it?"

"Shhhh," she said, looking down at the table as she tested that the last parts of the answer fitted together in her mind. Then she looked up, sure of her ground. "Sir, didn't you say you went by Indianapolis?"

Skinner blinked. "Yes," he said. "I came down west of the city. Why?"

"The military has a number of installations designed to keep toxic materials safe and contained. One of them is Newport Chemical Depot, not far from Indianapolis, and only about a hundred miles from here. "

Scully looked around the table. Comprehension was beginning to dawn on a few faces, but Byers and Linda looked baffled. "Sir," she said, turning to Skinner, "when you were going past Indianapolis, what did you see?"

"I had to be careful, travel slowly and at night." Skinner said. "There was more military traffic than I expected in that area. Had to be careful to avoid the roadblocks."

Jack made a rough sound of assent. "That tallies with what Carvalho said, that his unit was being pulled back to Newport."

Scully thought furiously. "Don't you see? That would be the perfect place to stockpile this material. Maybe even work with it if they needed to. They have labs, equipment, technicians . . ."

"But why pull the troops out of this area?" asked Byers, looking from Scully to Skinner, confused. 

"It's the next stage," said Mulder, a grim look on his face. 

Scully nodded. "He's right. The labs at the Depot would be far better equipped than anything around here and Newport is relatively well-connected to most of the major cities in the area. It makes sense that it would be a distribution center."

"And I saw trucks going out loaded with supplies and coming back loaded with troops," said Skinner. "It's a headquarters."

"It might even be one of the plants where they're storing the next plague in the sequence," she said, thinking aloud now. "If they're pulling back troops, maybe this area's about to become a very bad place to be."

Mulder touched her arm to get her attention. "You think this might be airborne?"

"It's a possibility," she replied. "These things are engineered, unnatural, so we can't predict the vectors so easily."

Mulder looked at Jack, his eyes shining with the familiar thrill they both felt when even a grisly, depressing puzzle was on the verge of a solution. "How long did Carvalho say before he was pulled out of Louisville?"

"Jesus. Three weeks," Jack replied; she could see dread dawning on his face. 

"I don't understand," said Linda. The hysteria and even the anger were gone, replaced by a thinly-held veneer of intellectual confusion. "If whoever these people are can build an illness that is so deadly, why not release it all at once? Why aren't more people dying? Why don't they just kill us all?"

The big question, the one they'd been dodging since they arrived at the plant. The one Scully had refused to talk about since they'd left Heniston, to be truthful. It seemed blasphemous to think that her mother had died to make room for bug-eyed monsters from a 1950s serial. She felt Mulder's eyes on her, knowing he was ready to answer for her.

"Because they don't want us all to die at once," Scully said.

Jack frowned, his grizzled brows dropping over his dark eyes. "Why not?"

"Because six billion dead is too big a mess. And they need some of us alive. For incubators, we think." Scully's eyes were fixed on Linda. Here she was, about to throw away her last shred of credibility, and finally agree with Mulder wholeheartedly. Could she persuade them to believe, as she had had to, in the end?

Linda sighed. "Incubators for *what*?"

Fuck professional credibility. It was the truth after all. "For the aliens."

And she knew, without looking at him, that Mulder was smirking at her.

**~+~+~**

They were all out of their minds. Vast worldwide conspiracies. Engineered plagues. Chips tracking people's movements. Clones. Spaceships. Alien invasion. How could they expect her to *believe* this?

Linda had almost run outside after the woman she thought was the most sane of all of them had begun spouting... science fiction. She picked at the splinters in the surface of the picnic table, watched her breath turn into smoke and wished for a cigarette. 

Even Mel believed them; she'd thought he was sane. But fifty years of conspiracy successfully hidden from a public rabid for scandal? Linda knew plenty of people who worked for the government: nobody could keep a secret like this for fifty days, much less fifty years.

*But I saw the spaceship.*

It wasn't a spaceship, she thought. It was one of those new stealth fighters. Sure: an utterly silent, immense black triangle that seemed to soak up the light like a sponge. 

She sat down on the table, even though it was really too cold to be outside, and pushed her hands into her pocket, angrily. 

"Hey." The voice didn't startle her -- she'd figured Mel would follow her out eventually. She didn't look at him as he hoisted himself up next to her.

"You still speaking to me?" he asked after a long minute during which Linda peeled several more strips of paint off the surface of the table. She shrugged.

"They still arguing in there?" Not that she really cared; it was all fantasy.

"Yeah. They're thinking maybe a raid." He gave a sarcastic smile. "Considering how well the last one turned out. What do you think?" He looked edgy, uncomfortable. 

Linda shook her head and finally turned to look at him. She had no opinion. Bringing it close enough to have an opinion would mean that she had to accept this reality, including aliens, plagues, spaceships . . .

"Christ, Mel! Would you listen to yourself?" Her voice was waspish in a way she didn't remember since Rafael had left.

Mel nodded, his face open and sympathetic; it made her want to slap him and yell 'snap out of it'. "I know you think it's crazy. But it's true. We got proof, you've seen it. "

She looked away, sucking her lips into her mouth and nibbling on them. After a few minutes Mel began talking in a tone he reserved for the story-telling hour before dinner that settled down the kids. He spoke for a long time. At first it was like fairy tales, but the stories got darker and grimmer and nearer. Mutants. Genocide. Medical experimentation. Cancer. The purposeful distribution of an engineered bacteria, designed to infect three in ten. Linda grabbed at that: math she knew. An infection rate of three in ten, and half of those died. 

Bile rose in her throat. And the note from the guy that Mulder hated so much, that said there were more plagues coming. She sank lower onto the table, her hands cupped over her mouth, staring unseeing at the river.

Mel kept talking; she didn't hear him for a long time. Finally his voice became very soft. "We have to go, we have to get all the information we can. We don't have a lot of time left."

When she didn't respond, he nudged her with his shoulder. "Linda? Linda, you okay?"

Linda raised a shaky hand and wiped her eyes; she'd only just realized she was crying. She sniffled and felt around in her pocket for a tissue, found only a scrap of toilet paper. She pictured a woman with red hair like Dana's, coughing up blood and dying slowly. She imagined Ari pinned on a table while someone approached her with medical equipment, her daughter's brown eyes wide with fear.

"Linda."

"Yeah?" Her voice was shaky.

"You going to be all right?"

"No, Mel, I'm not," she said. And then he put his arms around her as she wept into his shoulder for a long time.

**~+~+~**

As the door slammed shut behind Linda, with Frohike only a few steps behind, Mulder turned to her and said: "So, Scully... That went well."

Funny man, Scully thought, sarcastically. He didn't have to enjoy her climbdown quite so much. Jack recalled them to the matter in hand. "So what's our move?"

"If our deductions are right, Newport seems to be a key location for this area," said Skinner, working his jaw from side to side. "It would certainly fit with the other information I have."

Mulder's eyes narrowed. "And what information would that be?"

"I had a list of sites given to me by Krycek," Skinner replied, "back when you were working the X-Files. I was supposed to contact him if your investigation might take you near them. Newport was one."

"And did you tell him?" Scully asked, feeling a lingering sense of betrayal. "You couldn't just have told us he was trying to blackmail you?"

Skinner's jaw worked from side to side unhappily. "My loyalties then were ... complicated," he said. He ran a hand over his shiny pate. "Now, they're not."

Jack waved a hand impatiently. "This is old ground. What matter is what do we do now? How likely is it that Newport is the main hub for this part of the US? If we take out Newport, what kind of chance would it give us?"

Scully ran through the evidence in her mind and she knew it was incomplete. They had a better idea now with Skinner's information, but it was guesswork still. Newport might have the data on the bacterium, how it had been developed, how it could be fought. At the very least they might have information about what was coming next. 

If an entire sequence of plagues had been planned then they needed to prepare. If they could get in then maybe -- maybe they'd have some of that vaccine Jack had mentioned. But the place would be heavily guarded and probably locked down. Anything worth stealing would be at the heart of the complex, shielded to protect it from the EMP. How could a ragtag group like theirs possibly get in?

"I think we have to try to get in there. Do some damage," said Mulder. 

Scully shook her head. "You know how well-guarded that place will be? And chances are, it's not the wellspring of the plagues. That could be anywhere from Washington to Florida -- although from Krycek's information," she tapped the note distastefully, "it's probably Fort Detrick."

"But it would take us weeks to get to Detrick, and Newport's right here. There's a lot we could learn if we can get in. And even if we can't, wrecking the place could screw up their plans."

She looked at him sharply. "Or it could release some fresh hell into the air supply! Mulder, this is a suicide mission!"

"And waiting here to die anyway is not?" he snapped back. "You worked it out Scully, these are your deductions as much as they are mine."

Skinner held up a hand to restore the peace. "I'm with Mulder. If there is an airborne toxin on the way, we have to try to stop it."

Jack took off his glasses and rubbed his eyes thoughtfully. "We're isolated here. What are the chances that if we sit tight, keep ourselves isolated, we would survive?"

"We can't just abandon everyone outside this community to whatever the hell these guys decide to unleash next," said Mulder, his voice rising. 

Jack looked exasperated. "No, but we can't invite them all to weather the storm in here either. You've seen the figures about the supplies we have, how narrow our margin of survival is over the winter. I have to be practical -- and save the people I *can* save." 

Scully was staring at Krycek's piece of paper. "I have no way of knowing how they're going to do this," she said.

" That's why we can't just sit tight and wait for more information," Mulder exclaimed.

Scully shook her head. "Hold on. Wait. If we just rush in there we're not going to do anything but get ourselves killed." It was all happening too quickly. Three weeks was one hell of a deadline . . . 

"You're right," Jack said. "There's a meeting window with Carvalho in a couple of days. If he shows, maybe he'll be able to tell me something useful."


	13. Chapter 13

//December 23//

It was too late for visitors but the soft rapping on the door of the infirmary told her it wasn't Mulder -- he seldom came up here and when he did, he never knocked. "Age--" the voice stopped. "Scully?"

Skinner. "Come in," she said. 

He rounded the door. Until this week she'd never noticed how quietly he moved for such a bulky man. She picked up the candle and led him to the opposite side of the room, away from where Cynthia was combining wheezing and snoring to noisy effect. 

Skinner perched on one of the stools around her workbench and pulled off his glasses, polishing the lenses with the bottom of his navy blue T-shirt; he was waiting for something.

Then the door was pushed open again and Mulder walked in. He nodded in greeting and joined Skinner. She sighed. This had all the hallmarks of a planned ambush.

She sat at the end of the bench. "Just don't wake Cynthia," she muttered. 

In the days since Skinner had arrived he'd washed and shaved, so he looked more recognizable as his old self than Mulder did; even his hair was back to the regulation quarter-inch. His jaw muscles were clenching and unclenching now, which was usually a sign that he had to broach a subject which offended some odd sense of propriety. If he'd still been her boss, she would have been expecting a particularly unpleasant assignment.

"Is everything all right?"

He still wouldn't meet her eyes. "No," he said softly. "No, it's not."

"Are you ill, sir?" 

He looked up at the honorific and his mouth curved upwards. Mulder outright grinned and she flung inner curses in his direction but smiled all the same. For the first few days after Skinner's arrival she'd stuttered every time she'd spoken to him through trying not to call him 'Sir'. Old habits died hard. 

"Nothing like that, Scully."

"Then what?" 

Skinner paused and caught Mulder's eye, then went on: "There's something we need to tell you. Jack met Carvalho again tonight. The soldiers are definitely pulling out of Louisville in three weeks and they'll be 500 miles away by spring. Carvalho's unit definitely goes to Newport."

Scully rubbed her eyes wearily. "I guess that means we're less likely to be discovered here."

Again, Skinner and Mulder exchanged glances, as if measuring what to tell her. It was starting to piss her off. "It does, yes," Skinner began. "It...

Mulder huffed impatiently and broke in: "I think the next phase is starting, Scully. I think maybe they want to thin out the population using something they can't protect their soldiers from. You saw that list. TB was number six but it wasn't the last."

Scully pressed her hands together, as if in prayer, and brought them up to cover her mouth, her mind racing as she tried to calculate the damage that something like Marburg could do.

"Maybe even the final phase," Mulder added.

She shook her head and picked up a sheaf of notes on which she was trying to work out possible sequences of events based on Krycek's information. "No. It's too early for that, no matter what scenario we base it on. And probably too cold for a while."

He nodded and swiped a hand down the side of his bristled jaw. "Maybe. Just a matter of time though."

"Everything points to Newport being the regional base for the next phase of operations, Scully," Skinner said. "We could stop this thing, at least in this part of the country."

"And we've decided that we're going to try," Mulder said. Skinner shot him a look, as if he had revealed the punchline of a joke too early.

Scully felt only frustration. "How can we stop it? Tell me please, because I'd really like to know. That place will be guarded by many more people than there are in this building, all better armed than we are. You have a fighting force composed of paranoid computer nerds, their geeky friends, cranky survivalists, an ex-colonel and three washed-up FBI agents."

"Gee, thanks," Mulder muttered. 

She felt her temper begin to slip its reins and slapped the notes back down on the table. The candle flame wavered in the downdraft and the shadows on the infirmary walls twisted and warped. 

"We couldn't even steal equipment from an empty building in Louisville without fucking it up," she exclaimed. "How do you propose to steal research and equipment from a fully guarded depot?"

"You'll wake Cynthia," Mulder said, imitating her earlier comment. 

"Shut up, Mulder," she snapped. But as she looked up at him, she caught the hurt, guilty look on his face and her anger began to drain away. 

There was a long silence, filled with Cynthia's wheezing.

An apology was on the tip of her tongue, when Skinner said: "That's not the way this operation goes, Scully. We could steal any useful papers that we can carry and bring 'em back for you to look at, but the aim is to destroy the place. Burn it. Take it down before it can do any more harm."

Skinner's face had that steady, determined look she remembered from the times when he was stonewalling them and would not be persuaded to answer questions. He had already made up his mind. 

"We could do it," Mulder said, sounding almost enthused. "Small team, it would have to be planned like clockwork and we'd have to scatter for a couple of weeks or more afterwards so we don't lead them back here. But it can be done." 

She shook her head. "Anyone who goes in there isn't coming out."

"Thank you, Ms. Glass-is-half-empty." Mulder's mouth twisted into a smile.

She found herself smiling back, much against her will. "Mulder, you know I'm right."

He nodded. "Maybe. I'm not such a pessimist these days. But it's worth trying, don't you think?"

Before she could answer that, Skinner said: "Jack has talked to Carvalho about the evidence we have: the information Krycek gave me, and your research. He thinks that Carvalho is willing to get into a little mutinying to give us time to get in and out."

"But he doesn't know?"

Skinner shook his head. "And I think we shouldn't rely on it. But we can do this. It's strictly voluntary. Jack will stay here, look after the complex."

Scully folded her arms, knowing what was coming next. "And you want me to come with you?"

She looked from Mulder to Skinner and back again. They were calm, resolute. 

"We know what we're asking, Scully," Skinner said. "You're important to the running of this place and if you'd rather stay here, I respect that. But for what it's worth, you could work out what's important in those labs faster than me or Mulder and what's more, there's no one else I would rather have at my back."

His dark eyes were calm, purposeful and he appeared more at ease in that moment than she'd seen him in a long time. Maybe this was what Skinner was made for after all, the simple, stark objectives of wartime, rather than the strained loyalties of a treacherous peace.

"You need to think about it." Skinner slipped his feet off the rungs of the footstool and stood up. "Goodnight," he murmured and left the room. 

She watched his retreating back for a moment, before she turned to Mulder, who was staring into the candle flame. "And what do you think?"

"I've weighed up the risks just as you have. But this has to be done and it's something useful that I *can* do." 

There was a long silence, punctuated only by Cynthia's harsh breathing. Scully was trying to think through the possibilities but getting into Newport at a time like this? Walking into a depot full of soldiers who had orders to capture them? Let alone finding out where they kept their plans and destroying hazardous material safely... "I don't see how we can succeed, Mulder," she said.

"I think I have to try," he replied.

"Then you'll be killed," she said flatly. 

He stood up and looked into her eyes and she thought he was going to say something important, give her some reason why she was wrong. But he only gave a rueful smile. 

"Goodnight, Scully," he said and walked away.

**~+~+~**

//December 24//

Mulder's jaw itched, the skin raw from Frohike's dulled razor. Instead of scratching it, he stuffed his hands into the pocket of his jacket and shouldered his way through the cafeteria door.

It was brighter than he'd expected, and far noisier even than when he arrived three weeks ago. Someone had rigged loops of winking fairy lights to a car battery, and a huge star decoration and several bare lightbulbs were running off the main power in the kitchen. 

The grubby cafeteria had been scrubbed to within an inch of its life by a small group of the earnest young anarchists who'd taken Langly's absurd idea to heart. 

He looked around him. It looked as if all of the people dependent on this plant had gathered here -- from the children who were chasing each other round the hall to the survivalist hermits who lived in the houses down by the river. Well, almost all: he couldn't see Scully.

An elderly woman in three sweaters perched on a chair in the corner. She wasn't talking to anyone, just clinging to a mug of something, breathing in the smell, and watching the jostling throng. The noise level was beginning to rise and Mulder heard the ominous twanging of someone tuning a guitar in the far corner. 

He couldn't see Scully, so maybe she wasn't coming. He didn't suppose she would avoid it just because of him, but she had been upset and her way through that had always been to work.

The beer was on the table by the kitchen; Mulder dodged around a trio of wrestling children to reach it. Somehow he thought he might need alcohol to get through this. An array of cafeteria mugs and plastic cups were set in neat rows next to an old soda dispenser. Mulder filled a coffee mug and brought it nearly to his lips before Linda's voice stopped him.

"I wouldn't recommend it, Mulder."

He turned to see Linda reach past him to grab one of a dwindling number of Coke cans on the counter. She was wearing a dress: a short, black number that only came to her knees. She was a lot more attractive than Mulder had realized. He nodded a greeting and she smiled back.

She was right though: the beer was terrible. Mulder took another sip and grimaced; the yeasty taste reminded him of his one experiment with breadmaking in 8th grade. It was, however, the only alcohol he'd had in weeks, and he was determined to finish it. 

Jon, who had apparently taken over quartermaster duties for good, had authorized some indulgences, so the table at the front of the room sported an odd array of foodstuffs: tortilla chips, two bowls of M&Ms, a tiny bowl of caviar, a bowl of pork rinds, and a bowl of vienna sausages.

Multi-colored paper chains were suspended haphazardly from the water-stained ceilings and dun green walls; Mulder batted one out of his face as he wandered clockwise around the room. He still didn't see Langly, but Frohike was in the corner by the blacked-out windows. Mulder managed not to spill his beer despite the children racing past.

"Mulder!" cried Frohike with a big smile, "Merry Christmas, man!"

"Happy holidays," Mulder responded with a wry lift of his mug to hide the smile. Frohike was in Christmas colors: a red paper hat over a green Rolling Rock T-shirt. He had, for once, left off the gloves; instead he held something small and metallic in his left hand. Mulder peered a little closer.

"Frohike -- is that a harmonica?"

"Melvin's a man of unexpected talents, Mr. Mulder," said Linda as she slid in between Frohike and the lopsided pine tree which was festooned with popcorn and tin foil chains. She grinned at the two men and nudged Frohike over with a swing of her hip. Mulder looked from Frohike to Linda, then nodded very carefully. He needed more beer.

Mulder marched back toward the alcohol table, this time plowing obliviously through the crowd of revelers. He really didn't want to think about Frohike's sex life, really didn't want to think about that at all -- but the beer cask was empty.

Now what? Mulder put his yeasty mug on the table with a sigh, but before he had time to turn around someone had sloshed it full of a clear, pungent liquid. Looking up, Mulder saw Byers, dressed in a full suit with a green and red tie, stashing a milk jug under a chair.

"The beer didn't have enough time to ferment," remarked Byers as he wiped his hands on a rag and picked a glass tumbler. "But a couple of the kids used to watch M*A*S*H and got the idea for a small still . . . " Byers knocked the shot back with marvelous grace, and for the first time Mulder realized that Byers had some raw wounds as well.

It stung, that he hadn't even noticed. He took a sip from his mug: it was stupefyingly raw, but he could taste the alcohol. Despite the hangover he was bound to get, it would take the edge off and give him enough distance to get through this, to keep it light. To leave this place on a good note. 

"Byers --" he began, and was interrupted by a roar from the main cafeteria door.

Any holiday party would be incomplete without Santa Claus, and here he was, bag of toys and all. Usually Santa didn't wear glasses repaired with black electrical tape, and usually his beard was cotton fluff rather than -- was that toilet paper? -- but Mulder couldn't fault Langly for his enthusiasm. Langly bounded into the room with a shout, then clutched at his waist to keep the pillow from falling out. It looked like he was wearing a red blanket wrapped like a toga, but he had somehow found a real cloth Santa hat instead of a makeshift paper hat like Frohike's.

When Mulder saw the figure behind Langly, he gulped down the rest of the vodka in his cup immediately. Somehow in the activity of the past few days Langly had convinced a former assistant director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation to put on green and red pajamas and play one of Santa's Elves.

It was almost too much to bear; Mulder didn't know whether he needed to hide in the kitchen and laugh himself sick, or drink himself into a stupor. He did manage to control himself for the next several minutes, while the band tuned up and the children gathered in a small circle around Langly. He didn't dive for the vodka even when Frohike and two young hackers began an off-key bluesy version of "Santa Claus Is Coming to Town".

By the time that song had rambled to a discordant but cheerful finish, Mulder had refilled his mug from Byers' stash and found himself a chair in the rear to watch the festivities. He could do this. 

As they switched to "Silent Night", he scanned the room. The woman in the layers of sweaters was weeping openly; a young man with a soft scraggly beard let her wipe her eyes on his flannel shirt. Mulder spotted tears on a few other faces, while the children were rapt as Walter Skinner began handing out small packages wrapped in old newspaper, paper bags, and even dishtowels. Frohike was wheezing away with great enthusiasm if no real talent, and in the dim light Mulder could pretend this wasn't what it was. 

It really was remarkable. The world out there was cold, dark and hostile and they didn't know their own fates much less those of their families. And yet, they were here, pulled together by Langly's purblind insistence and the imperative of community. It was pretty fucking amazing.

And then Mulder's eyes stopped flicking from face to face: he'd found her, leaning against the wall next to Aracelis, smiling, sipping from her mug. Even as he was thinking that he wouldn't disturb her, he'd leave her to chat to Ari, he was walking in her direction, as if his legs were obeying some other brain's instructions. 

For the first time in over two months, she was in something other than jeans and a sweatshirt. She was, in fact, wearing a long dress. A dress he'd never seen her in before, but that fit her too well to be Linda's. It was a color he wasn't sure what to call -- maroon, maybe, in soft fabric that swirled around her legs. He looked a little further, and started to grin.

"Quite the fashion statement there, Scully." Instead of sheer hose and a pair of her old nosebleed heels, Scully was wearing the same battered running shoes she'd been wearing for weeks.

She started and then a slow smile spread across her face. "Well," she shrugged, "it was these or the hiking boots."

He lifted an eyebrow at her; Scully raised her cup and smiled a little wider.

He thought maybe he could salvage something from this after all.

**~+~+~**

The snow was drifting already; Scully had had to exert more force than she had expected to get the main door open. She made a mental note that they would have to start a shoveling rotation, or nobody would be able to get from building to building if the weather kept up.

Flakes sparkled briefly in the light from the open door, and then she let it swing shut behind her and stepped out into the center of the lane. The door swung shut, and the noise of an inexpertly but energetically played Irish reel cut out.

Sensitive to security issues, they had not activated any of the outdoor lighting, but the faint illumination leaking from the second-floor window was enough to make the world a swirling grey mist. There was enough wind to pile the snow more heavily against these east-facing walls, but even away from the building the snow was high enough to come over the tops of her sneakers. She felt the cold trickle of meltwater down her right ankle.

It didn't seem to matter much. It was Christmas Eve, and she was supposed to feel lucky to have survived so far. At least she'd made her decision.

Scully stuffed her hands deep into her pockets -- her fingers were already cold -- and hunched her shoulders against the wind. She'd thought to wrap her scarf around her head, but her gloves were drying on the vent in her office/bedroom. The wind caught the long skirts of the burgundy dress and wrapped them around her legs.

Light caught the snowflakes around her for an instant and then the world went dark again. "Scully?"

"Over here," she said softly, but didn't turn to look as Mulder came up beside her. She could almost see patterns in the way the snowflakes spun and twisted as they danced their way to earth.

She felt a hand gentle on her shoulders and her head, brushing at the snow. "You're getting all wet out here," Mulder said mildly. He didn't look at her, but instead stood next to her, watching the snow fall.

"How's the party going?" Scully asked idly. She shifted her feet, hoping to find a spot where they wouldn't be as wet. Her armed brushed against Mulder, and she looked up at him.

He shrugged. "Winding down soon, I think." His face seemed unfamiliar; she'd grown accustomed to the beard in the past two months, and he looked oddly vulnerable without it. Her left hand went up to touch the chafed skin on his jaw.

"You should-- " she began, but he pulled his head away with a soft exclamation, and took her bare hand in his gloved one.

"Scully, your fingers are freezing -- " his next words were muffled as he stripped his left glove off with his teeth, and wrapped his warm palms around her chilled fingers. When she tried to free her hand, he pulled her other hand out of her pocket and trapped it with the first.

It was awkward trying to stand side-by-side with their hands entwined; Scully shifted around so she was facing Mulder instead. She briefly considered standing on his feet: at least that would keep her feet from getting any wetter. But there would be no room for them to... for him to hold her hands if she did that.

"Well?" There was a challenge in his words, and she raised her head to meet his eyes. His face was shadowed, and she could see no expression there.

"Yes, my hands are warmer now. Thank you." She thought she might have caught a hint of a smile before he looked away.

She wasn't sure she'd ever experienced quiet like this. No traffic sounds, no sirens. There was nothing out here but the indistinct murmur of distant music and the soft whisper of Mulder's breathing in the crisp night air. They were things worth fighting for.

She took a deep breath. "Yes."

"Hmmm?" 

"Yes, I'll go with you to Newport." 

He gave the briefest of nods and his warm hands squeezed hers before he switched his gaze out into the falling snow. 

"So how many inches do you think we'll get? Will it be enough to go sledding?"

Scully blinked. Trust Mulder. "I don't know. But I don't think we have time to go sledding anyway, Mulder. We have a lot of work before we leave --"

"Oh, Scully. You've forgotten that tomorrow is Christmas. I will not let you work on Christmas Day."

"Let?" She let her voice drop, but curled amusement into it, the way she had done so many times in the past, before -- well, before. She knew she had succeeded in the tease when he let out a soft huff.

"Point taken. How about --" and he tugged lightly on her hands, pulling her just a few inches closer to him. She swayed forward and kept herself balanced by pushing against Mulder's hands. 

"-- I challenge you to a snowball fight? Geeks versus nerds?" He cocked his head at her, and despite the darkness she could see the smile on his face. 

Damn him anyway. She stepped on his feet to get her sneakers out of the snow; he didn't seem to notice at all.

"Oh, all right. But you know we're going to kick your butts. Geeks are way better at snowball trajectories than nerds are."

"Sure you are, Scully. Sure." 

\---------------------------

_"But after Ragnarok, after all the gods are killed and Surt the fire-giant swings his sword to set the world afire -- even after the ashes sink beneath the sea, life persists. The earth rises again._

_"That's the message I want you to remember. Life is unquenchable, irrepressible. This is the truth hidden in the legends, Sean, in what my grandfather told me, and in what I am telling you. We will live."_

**Author's Note:**

> AUTHORS' NOTES: Thanks to Fialka, Melymbrosia, and Sarah Segretti for wonderful, if occasionally painful, beta and ideas. Thanks also to the Wartime Collective, particularly Magdeleine, Maria Nicole, and Fialka, for brainstorming above and beyond the call of duty.
> 
> Many thanks to JET for geographic consultation. And, of course, to the Wartime Stalkers, particularly Sarah Segretti and Jean Robinson, who kept the fire lit underneath us for all these many months. Of course, Sarah's reward was to beta the damned thing, which might have been more than she really wanted... *grin*
> 
> FURTHER NOTES: We realized part-way through writing that the name Ari is used in another fine post-col story, Portions of Eternity (by Dianora, has Star Wars references and everything, highly recommended), but we wanted to use it anyway, since the two characters have nothing in common bar a nickname and the end of the world. 
> 
> ONE LAST NOTE: No, we're really not finished yet, and yes, we do plan to. 
> 
> (PS: This is cofax. I just need to immortalize the fact that finisterre did far more than her share of the work on this and I owe her hugely for picking up and running with the thing when I had no time to breathe. It was an honor collaborating with her.)


End file.
